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D 



ROYAL CASTLES OF ENGLAND 



WORKS OF 
HENRY C. SHELLEY 



The Art of the Wallace Collection 

net $2.00; postpaid $2.20 
Inns and Taverns of Old London 3.00 
The British Museum : Its History 

and Its Treasures .... 4. 00 
Old Paris . net $3.00; postpaid 3.20 
Royal Castles of England . net 3.00 

postpaid 3.20 



L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 

53 BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 




RAGLAK CASTLE. (See page 236.) 











Comprising an account of those ancient Fortresses 
which from the days of William the Conqueror 
either were the Homes of English Sov- 
ereigns or have been intimately asso- 
ciated with the History and 
Romance of their lives 




Author of " Inns and Taverns of Old 
London," " Old Paris," etc. 


MiiXBtratth 


L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 
BOSTON ^ MDCCCCXIII 









S5 



Copyright, 1913, hy 

L. C. Page & Company 

(incorporated) 

Entered at Stationers^ Hall, London 
All rights reserved 



First Impression, August, 1913 



THE COLONIAL PRESS 
C. H. SIMONDS & CO., BOSTON, U. S. A. 



/^3:^" 



PREFACE 

\ 

None of the ancient buildings of England, neither 
its venerable village churches with their moving 
memorials of bygone rural life, nor its historic ca- 
thedrals with their resplendent tombs of '' ladies 
dead and lovely knights," can for a moment vie in 
interest with those stately castles which have been 
associated with the loves and hates, the triumphs 
and defeats of the sovereigns of that land. A few 
of the most notable of those feudal fortresses have 
been razed to the ground, or have left no other 
vestige of their presence than those shapeless heaps 
over which nature is wont to cast her green mantle 
of kindly oblivion; but a great number have sur- 
vived the iconoclasm of man and the ravages of 
time, and it is the purpose of the ensuing pages to 
conduct the reader on a pilgrimage to those haunts 
of vanished greatness. The story touches the whole 
gamut of human emotion: love, the love of a man 
for a maid; parental affection, which sways the 
royal as well as the plebeian heart; illicit passion, 
against which a crown is no talisman; pride of 
power ; thirst of glory ; the effulgence of a throne ; 
the gloom of a prison ; the poison or lethal blade of 



vm 



Preface 



the assassin; the final horror of the headsman's axe 
— all the shows and shadows of regal life find their 
image here. 

For the purpose of classification a geographical 
rather than a chronological arrangement has been 
adopted, the latter being manifestly impossible ow- 
ing to the fact that the traditions of a given castle 
are not confined to any one monarch; and even in 
the topographical division of England into southern, 
midland, and northern districts it is a general view 
of the map which has been kept in mind. 

Naturally no attempt has been made to include 
London and its immediate neighbourhood; the 
royal, prelatical, and baronial castles and palaces 
of the English capital were so numerous and im- 
portant that they necessarily demand separate 
treatment; hence those historic buildings will be 
the subject of a subsequent volume bearing the title 
of " The Castles and Palaces of Old London." 

H. c. s. 



CONTENTS 



Preface 



PAGE 

vii 



I. SOUTHERN ENGLAND 
I. The Guardian of Albion's White Walls 1 

(Dover Castle) 

II. The Home of Anne Boleyn .... 28 
(Hever Castle) 

III. A Stronghold of Many Sieges ... 41 

(Rochester Castle) 

IV. A Queen at Bay . . . . . .55 

(Leeds Castle) 
V. Plotting Murder for the King ... 68 
(Saltwood Castle) 

VI. Held for the King 80 

(Lewes Castle) 
VII. The Prison of the Martyr King . . 93 
(Carisbrooke Castle) 
VIII. " No Worse Deed Was Ever Done " . . 106 
(Corfe Castle) 

IX. Royal Windsor 119 

(Windsor Castle) 
X. A Fortress of Magna Charta Days . . 139 

(Colchester Castle) 

XI. A Costly Guest 148 

(Hedingham Castle) 



II. MIDLAND ENGLAND 



I. Queen Mary's Refuge 163 

(Framlingham Castle) 

II. The " She Wolf's " Cage . . . .178 

(Castle Rising) 
III. The Castle of " Princely Pleasures " . 192 
(Kenilworth Castle) 



X Contents 

CHAPTER PAGB 

IV. " Shrieks of an Agonizing King " . . 205 

(Berkeley Castle) 

V. A Nursery of Kings 218 

(Ludlow Castle) 
VI. An Outpost of the Civil War . . . 236 
(Raglan Castle) 

III. NORTHERN ENGLAND 

I. A - Hunting with King James . . . 251 
(Hoghton Tower) 
II. The Home of John of Gaunt . . . 261 
(Lancaster Castle) 

III. Richard III in Milder Mood . . .271 

(Middleham Castle) 

IV. " A Bloody Prison " 284 

(Pontefract Castle) 
V. The Prisons of Mary Stuart . . . 299 

(Carlisle, Bolton, Tutbury and Sheffield Castles) 

VI. A Border Rendezvous 317 

(Newcastle Castle) 

VII. " Norham's Castled Steep " . . . . 330 

(Norham Castle) 

Bibliography . . . . . . . 341 

Index . . 345 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGB 

Raglan Castle (See Page 236) .... Frontispiece \/ 

Dover Castle . 2v 

The Entrance Gateway, Dover Castle .... 8 ^ 
The Church and Pharos, Dover Castle .... 22 

Hever Castle 28 ■ 

Rochester Castle 42 v^ 

The Interior of the Keep, Rochester Castle . . 46 *^ 

Leeds Castle 55' 

The Entrance Brujge, Leeds Castle 57 

Saltwood Castle 68 

Lewes Castle ' 80 - 

The Entrance Gatehouse, Lewes Castle ... 88 

Carisbrooke Castle '94 

The Keep Steps, Carisbrooke Castle . . . .100 

St. Edward's Bridge, Corfe Castle 110 

The Keep, Corfe Castle 114 

Windsor Castle 120 

St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle .... 124 >' 

The East Terilvce, Windsor Castle 136 >'' 

Colchester Castle 140 

The Interior of the Keep, Colchester Castle . . 144 : 

Hedingham Castle 148 -^ 

Framlingham Castle 168 

The Entrance Gateway, Framlingham Castle . . 176 

Castle Rising 188 

The Tower Stairs, Castle Rising 190 

Kenilworth Castle 192 

sJThe Leicester Buildings, Kenilworth Castle . . 197 

xi 



xii List of Illustrations 



206"^ 
211^ 
220 1 
229'' 
234 ^ 
239*^ 



Bebkeley Castle 

King Edwakd's Prison, Berkeley Castle , 

The Princes' Tower, Ludlow Castle 

Prince Arthur's Tower, Ludlow Castle . 

The Doorway of the Keep, Ludlow Castle 

The Tower of Gwent, Raglan Castle 

The Gateway of the Bowling-green, Raglan Castle 240'- 

The Entrance to the State Apartments, Raglan Castle 244 * 

HoGHTON Tower 257 

The Courtyard, Hoghton Tower 258 

Lancaster Castle 264 

The Gatehouse, Lancaster Castle 268'- 

Middleham Castle 276 

Pontefract Castle 284 ^ 

Carlisle Castle 300 

Bolton Castle 304 ^ 

TuTBURY Castle 310 ^ 

Sheffield Manor 314^ 

Newcastle - on - Tyne Castle 318 V 

NbRHAM Castle 330* 



I 

SOUTHERN ENGLAND 



ROYAL CASTLES 
OF ENGLAND 

CHAPTEK I 

THE GUAKDIAN OF ALBION 'S WHITE WALLS 
DOVER CASTLE 

Naturalists tell us there are some moths whose 
lightly-coloured wings are their undoing, attracting 
the onslaughts of predatory birds. In the same 
fashion the white cliffs of the English shore in the 
vicinity of Dover appear to have been a deciding 
factor in Julius Caesar's first invasion of ancient 
Britain. Having subdued all Gaul, the Roman gen- 
eral at last reached the French coast somewhere in 
the neighbourhood of Calais, and from thence the 
*' cliffy downs " of the opposite island lured him 
across the English Channel to new conquests. That 
was nigh two thousand years ago, for it was in the 
fifty-fifth year before the Christian era that 

" Caesar out of war-worn France 
Victorious troops did bring." 

Even then, however, that valley cleft in the Kent- 
ish coast was at once recognized by the Roman 

1 



2 Royal Castles of England 

soldier as a vulnerable point in the white walls of 
Albion. For the objective of Csesar when he sailed 
from France was that spot on the further shore 
which, in later ages, was to be called " the Key of 
England. ' ' And the rude natives of that land were 
conscious of that fact, for when the Eoman general 
drew near to the shore he found that the lofty cliffs 
to the east and west of that ravine were alive with 
armed men ready to contest his landing. 

Many years later, when other Eoman generals 
had recognized that this stretch of the English 
coast invited attack and called for defence, it was 
on the easternmost of those two cliffs was erected 
one of those citadels designed to repel the assaults 
of the Saxon pirates. All traces of that Eoman 
fortress have long disappeared from the castle 
heights of Dover, but there still survive considerable 
remains of a structure which links that historic 
spot with the far-off era of the Eoman conquest of 
Britain. 

As the nearest point to the mainland on the oppo- 
site side of the English Channel the haven at Dover 
would naturally be most used by the Eoman galleys 
passing to and fro, and for their guidance at night 
beacon-towers were erected on both the French and 
the English coast. Hence the Tour d'Odre near 
Boulogne, the building of which about the year 45 
is attributed to Caligula, and hence, too, the Pharos 
which was reared on the Dover heights as the com- 



Guardian of Albion's White Walls 3 

plementary lighthouse on the further side of the 
narrow seas. The Tour d'Odre has vanished, but 
the Pharos of Dover still exists. Not, of course, in 
its entirety ; during the many centuries which have 
passed since its erection much of the original struc- 
ture has disappeared or been encased by more 
modern work; but the basement survives as an 
indubitable fragment of Eoman days. It stands at 
the western end of the venerable Church of St. 
Mary, that temple of the Christian faith which is 
believed to date from the fourth century and is thus 
one of the oldest religious structures on English 
soil. 

A legend of the middle of the eleventh century 
gives us our first glimpse of the Castle of Dover. 
For some object, on which no definite information 
is forthcoming, Harold, the potent Earl of Wessex 
and the aspirant to the crown of Edward the Con- 
fessor, resolved to pay a visit to Normandy, the 
domain of that Duke William to whom Edward is 
said to have promised the reversion of his throne. 
During that journey Harold accompanied William 
on a warlike expedition, and, one day, as the two 
were riding side by side, the Norman duke recalled 
his youthful friendship with the English king. 
** Edward and I," he said, '' lived under the same 
roof, like two brothers; he promised me if ever he 
became king of England, to make me heir to his 
kingdom; Harold, if thou wouldst aid me in real- 



4 Royal Castles of England 

izing this promise, be sure that, if I obtain the king- 
dom, whatever thou asketh thou shalt have. ' ' Taken 
off his guard for the moment, Harold expressed his 
willingness to assist the Norman duke in attaining 
his ambition, whereupon Duke William continued: 
*' Since thou consentest to serve me, thou must en- 
gage to fortify Dover Castle, to dig a well of fresh 
water there, and deliver it up, when the time comes, 
to my people. ' ' To this, too, as the old story goes, 
Harold also agreed, and was later, ere he returned 
to England, lured into taking a solemn oath on his 
promise. 

But, as history has recorded, Harold had no in- 
tention of keeping his vow. The sequel is well 
known. When Edward died, Harold took the Eng- 
lish crown for himself. Then came the battle of 
Hastings, the overthrow of the English, the death 
of Harold on the battle-field, and the conquest of the 
land by William of Normandy. And it was a few 
days after the battle of Hastings that the Castle of 
Dover makes another fleeting appearance in the 
early annals of Albion. Having rested and re- 
formed his army, the Norman duke marched on 
Dover, '' the strongest fortress on the whole coast, 
and of which he had formerly endeavoured to make 
himself master, without danger and without fight- 
ing, by the oath into which he had entrapped Harold. 
Dover Castle, recently completed by the son of 
Godwin for better purposes, was constructed on a 



Guardian of Albion's White Walls 5 

rock bathed by the sea, naturally steep, and which, 
with great difficulty and labour, had been hewn on 
every side, so as to make it present the appearance 
of a vast wall. The details of the siege made by 
the Normans," continues Augustin Thierry, '' are 
not known ; all the historians tell us is, that the town 
of Dover was fired, and that, either from terror or 
treason, the garrison of the fortress surrendered 
it." Recognizing, as the Romans had done, the 
strength of this site on the summit of the eastern 
cliff, the Norman conqueror gave orders for the 
erection of additional walls and defensive works 
ere he resumed his march into the interior of the 
country. 

From this date, that is, 1066, the historian of 
Dover Castle is on sure ground. Exactly what form 
the Roman fortress took, or how the original citadel 
was modified by the Anglo-Saxons, are matters on 
which the learned in such lore are not agreed; but 
there is a consensus of opinion that the wide en- 
circling walls, the sturdy watch-towers, and the 
massive keep which still crown the eastern heights 
belong almost entirely to the Norman period. Not 
that they were all built during the reign of William 
the Conqueror ; the keep, for example, is believed to 
have been erected by Henry II about the year 1154 ; 
but the plan of the fortress is thought to be prac- 
tically the same as that decided upon shortly after 
the battle of Hastings. 



6 Royal Castles of England 

A few years later, when he had time to turn his 
attention to the organization of his new kingdom, 
William the Conqueror framed a kind of constitu- 
tion for the government of Dover Castle. The 
charge of the fortress was committed to a constable, 
with whom was associated a confederacy of eight 
knights. Some such scheme was rendered necessary 
by the fact that there was no standing army in those 
early days. Hence the upkeep and defence of the 
castle became a charge on the land. That is to say, 
the constable was granted a large estate to enable 
him to provide a certain number of men, and the 
knights associated with him were also endowed with 
sufficient land to defray their expenses in providing 
the soldiers for whom they were responsible. For 
many years, too, the constable of Dover Castle had 
unlimited power over the possessions of those who 
lived in the adjacent town or in the surrounding 
district. In other words, whatever the constable 
needed in the form of hay, corn, straw, or pro- 
visions, he demanded of the citizens of Dover or the 
farmers of the neighbourhood. This became an in- 
tolerable burden, especially on the occasion of royal 
visits, and, at length, the lieges protested so vehe- 
mently that, in the reign of Henry III, an edict was 
issued forbidding the constable to seize the goods 
of any man without paying for them. Years later, 
however, the order was so little respected that Arch- 
bishop Boniface had to threaten some knights of 



Guardian of Albion's White Walls 7 

the castle with all kinds of ecclesiastical penalties 
before they would restore the horses, wagons and 
fodder which they had seized from some Kentish 
yeomen. 

Although from the date of the Norman Conquest 
the Castle of Dover became one of the chief strong- 
holds of the kingdom and must have often been 
visited by the monarchs of the land when they 
crossed to or returned from France, the records of 
such early royal associations are exceedingly frag- 
mentary. Of the twelfth century, for example, the 
annals of the fortress record but two such visits, 
one by Henry II, when he assembled his army at 
Dover prior to his seizure of Nantes, and another 
by Richard Coeur de Lion on the eve of his departure 
for the Crusades. Such is the conventional account, 
but it is hardly accurate so far as Henry II is con- 
cerned, for the elaborate itinerary of the movements 
of that king compiled by R. W. Eyton shows that he 
was frequently at Dover, his visits ranging in date 
from 1156 to 1187. Two years later Richard of the 
Lionheart succeeded to the throne, and no sooner 
had he been crowned than he began to prepare for 
his conquest of the Holy Land. He offered for sale, 
the chroniclers declare, everything he had, castles, 
farms, manors, earldoms, and benefices. '' I would 
sell London itself," he declared, *' could I find a 
purchaser rich enough." And then he journeyed 
to his Castle of Dover to superintend the prepara- 



8 Royal Castles of England 

tion of that fleet of nearly two hundred vessels 
which were to carry his army over the seas. 

For two or three centuries, indeed, the royal asso- 
ciations of Dover Castle are chiefly of a warlike 
nature. As one of the principal fortresses of the 
kingdom its possession counted for a good deal in 
the frequent struggles between the sovereign and 
his turbulent lords. Sometimes it was held for the 
king, sometimes for the barons. During the closing 
stages of the quarrel between King John and the 
nobles who had forced him to sign Magna Charta, it 
so happened that the Castle of Dover was one of 
the few strongholds which remained loyal to the 
crown, the constable of the time being Sir Hubert 
de Burgh. It was at this period that the English 
nobles, disgusted with the treachery of their own 
king, invited Louis, the Dauphin of France, to cross 
into England and become their sovereign. Flat- 
tered by the oifer, Louis promptly put in an ap- 
pearance among his prospective subjects, only to 
discover that several formidable obstacles lay be- 
tween him and the English crown. One of those 
obstacles being Dover Castle, he addressed himself 
to the reduction of that fortress, which he so closely 
invested that it was in imminent danger of capture. 
At length the garrison became so greatly diminished 
in numbers that the survivors pleaded with Sir 
Hubert de Burgh to surrender. But at that junc- 
ture King John sent Sir Stephen de Pencestre to 



Guardian of Albion's White Walls 9 

the relief of the castle, and as that gallant soldier 
was able to outwit the Dauphin and throw some 
four hundred men into the stronghold, it was not 
long ere the French besiegers were compelled to re- 
tire. And, before they could return, the defences 
had been so strengthened that the Dauphin deemed 
it wiser not to venture on another attack. 

During the reigns of the three Edwards — a 
period of more than a hundred years — the Castle 
of Dover was honoured by many royal visits, but, 
in the main, they were associated with warlike ex- 
peditions to the Continent or were temporary so- 
journs connected with the arrival of royal brides. 
The most notable association with Edward II cred- 
its him with having signed within these walls the 
recall of his contemptible favourite Gaveston, to 
whom also he committed for the term of his absence 
in France the guardianship of the kingdom with full 
power to fill up ecclesiastical offices in the king's 
name. On that occasion Edward II seems to have 
spent more than a month in the castle, but little is 
recorded of his doings save that reinstatement of 
his favourite which led to such disastrous results. 

Notwithstanding the importance of the castle as 
the guardian of the white walls of England, or, per- 
haps, because of that fact, it is not until we reach the 
sixteenth century that its history is touched with the 
light and colour of romance. So long as it was a 
fortress more than a palace its annals were practi- 



10 Royal Castles of England 

cally barren of those incidents which constitute the 
chief attraction of such ancient buildings. Strangely 
enough, the Wars of the Roses did not add to the 
legends of the castle, and even the king who united 
the Lancastrians and Yorkists and was the founder 
of the Tudor dynasty, Henry VII, makes but a 
shadowy figure in the history of the stronghold. 
There is, however, one record of a visit he paid at 
the beginning of the sixteenth century which affords 
a welcome proof that he was not always of so grasp- 
ing a disposition as the historians affirm. This doc- 
ument is a letter '' given under our signet at our 
Castle of Dover," and is concerned with a claim 
which had been made of a knight named Richard 
Bulkeley. As a yeoman of the Crown Bulkeley was 
under obligation either to accompany his king on 
his recent voyage to France or contribute ten 
pounds towards his expenses. He elected the 
former alternative, but as he was paid certain wages 
for his services the guardians of the royal ex- 
chequer made a claim for the ten pounds. Bulkeley 
appealed to the king, who, for once, took a generous 
view of the case. *' We," he wrote to his officials, 
'' considering that as well by great rage of fire as 
other unfortunate chances, he hath sustained, as he 
says, right great loss, desire and pray you to in- 
quire whether he be able to pay the said money or 
is fallen into such poverty as is above surmised. 
And if the same surmise be true that then ye cer- 



Guardian of Albion's White Walls 11 

tify us thereof, and in the meantime see that he be 
not distressed or troubled for the nonpayment of 
the said ten pounds." Whether Bulkeley finally 
escaped the payment of that ten pounds does not 
appear, but it is pleasant to remember that the last 
association of Henry VII with Dover Castle pre- 
sents him in so favourable a light. 

At no period during its long history was the 
Kentish fortress the scene of so many distinguished 
royal visits as in the reign of Henry VIII. Four 
years after he came to the throne he was at war 
with France, and it was at Dover he assembled that 
redoubtable army with which he fought and won the 
Battle of the Spurs. A little more than a year later, 
however, he was again at the castle on a more peace- 
able mission. In the shuffling of the statecraft of 
the time the enmity between Henry and Louis XII 
of France had given place to friendship, and it so 
happened that at this juncture the King of France 
was in need of another wife. Now, a suitable candi- 
date was available in the person of Mary Tudor, the 
daughter of Henry VII and the sister of Henry 
VIII. It is true she had been betrothed to Charles 
of Castile, but that prince and his friends had 
proved so treacherous that Mary's brother was 
quite willing to ignore the contract with Charles 
and use her as a pawn in his political game. Bom 
in March, 1496, she had reached her eighteenth year 
and had blossomed into a woman of surpassing 



12 Royal Castles of England 

beauty, when her matrimonial future underwent 
this sudden change. As a girl of eleven, indeed, 
Mary Tudor had been eulogized for her " splendid 
beauty " and for the " modesty and gravity with 
which she bore herself, and the laudable and 
princely gestures discerned in her." By this time, 
the summer of 1514, she had grown tall and grace- 
ful, and a portrait of her which had been sent to 
the French king did such justice to her charms that 
that monarch speedily accepted Henry's offer of 
her hand. Louis, it is true, was in his fifty-second 
year, and a physical wreck, but such defects were of 
no moment in the royal matrimonial contracts of 
the sixteenth century. 

Mary herself, too, was so well schooled in the hard 
fate of princesses that she accepted her destiny 
with equanimity. She was already in love with 
Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the favourite of 
her royal brother, and it was of him she was think- 
ing when she agreed to marry the French king on 
the condition that if she survived him she should 
be allowed to make her own choice of a second hus- 
band. Meantime, such was her gentle disposition, 
she wrote several letters to her prospective hus- 
band, using such expressions as a woman might to 
a man she really loved. *' I assure you, my lord,*' 
she wrote, '* that the thing which I now most desire 
and wish is to hear good news of your health and 
prosperity; " and in a second letter she expressed 



Guardian of Albion's White Walls 13 

her *' singular desire " to *' see you and to be in 
your company." 

Louis wrote several times to urge the speedy 
journey of his lovely bride. He was as eager and 
as full of promises as a lover of twenty. To an 
English nobleman, who happened to be at his court 
while the negotiations were in progress, he affirmed 
that '' there should be never man or woman about 
his wife but such as should be at her contentment 
and pleasure; " and he favoured the same peer 
with a kind of private view of the jewels he had 
selected for the adornment of his bride. *' He 
showed me," wrote this chronicler, " the goodliest 
and richest sight of jewels that ere I saw. I would 
never have believed it if I had not seen it; for I 
assure you all that ever I have seen is not to com- 
pare fo fifty-six great pieces that I saw of diamonds 
and rubies, and seven of the greatest pearls that I 
have seen, besides a great number of other goodly 
diamonds, rubies, and great pearls; and the worst 
of the second sort of stones be priced and cost two 
thousand ducats. There are ten or twelve of the 
principal stones that there hath been refused for 
one of them one hundred thousand ducats. And 
when he had showed me all, he said that all should 
be for his wife. And another coffer also was there 
that was full of goodly girdles, collars, chains, 
bracelets, beads of gold, and other diverse goodly 
jewels ; but merrily laughing he said, * My wife 



14 Royal Castles of England 

shall not have all at once, but at divers times ; ' for 
he would have many and at divers times kisses and 
thanks for them. I assure you he thinketh every 
hour a day till he see her ; he is never well but when 
hearing speak of her. I make no doubt but she shall 
have a good life with him, by the grace of God." 

At last Mary Tudor set out on the journey which 
was to make her the possessor of all these rare 
jewels. Her brother, the king, who was accom- 
panied by Catherine of Aragon and the English 
court, escorted her to Dover, and the whole com- 
pany was lodged in the castle pending the final ar- 
rangements for the young bride's departure. She 
was carrying with her so large a retinue of lords 
and ladies and servants and such a huge wardrobe 
and store of other plenishings that no fewer than 
fourteen vessels had to be requisitioned for the 
crossing of the Channel. It was towards the end of 
September that the distinguished company arrived 
at the castle, but as '' the winde was troublous and 
the wether fowle " Mary could not at once depart 
for her new home. Day after day, indeed, went by 
and still her voyage was delayed. From the towers 
of the castle strict watch was kept for a change in 
the wind, and at last, at four o 'clock in the morning 
of the second of October, the storm abated. Such 
an opportunity was too precious to be lost, so, al- 
though the hour was abnormally early, the young 
princess was aroused from her sleep to start on her 



Guardian of Albion's White Walls 15 

voyage. The king also arose and accompanied his 
sister to the shore, an incident which is immortal- 
ized in that stained glass window of the church in 
Bury St. Edmund's where Mary Tudor was laid to 
rest. 

But the promise of that early start from Dover 
bay was not fulfilled. Hardly had the fleet of the 
fair young bride sailed half a dozen miles from the 
shore than the wind began to blow again with ter- 
rific force and the vessels were scattered in all direc- 
tions. One of them, the Luhech, which ranked 
among the largest ships in Henry's navy, was 
driven ashore near Oalais and wrecked with the loss 
of many lives. Mary's vessel was with difficulty 
steered in the direction of Boulogne, but as it was 
impossible to make the harbour there the pilot ran 
the ship ashore as the safest course. As the land, 
however, was still some distance off, a boat was 
lowered and the princess rowed towards the break- 
ers. That point reached, one of her courtiers 
jumped into the sea and carried her ashore in his 
arms. Seven days later Mary became Queen of 
France, but in eighty- two days she was a widow 
and free to make her own choice of a new husband. 

When Henry VIII next visited Dover Castle it 
was to welcome the very man to whom his sister 
Mary had been betrothed prior to her marriage to 
the French king! By now, however, the Prince of 
Castile had become the Emperor Charles V, and it 



16 Royal Castles of England 

suited the English monarch's purpose to receive 
him into his kingdom as an honoured guest. This 
was at the end of May, 1520, on the eve of the 
Field of the Cloth of Gold. Alarmed at what might 
be portended by the approaching interview between 
Henry of England and Francis of France, Charles 
arranged to visit his English cousin in his own coun- 
try. So he crossed to Dover on the 26th of May, 
and was received in the castle with fitting ceremony. 
Henry was at Canterbury, but on learning of the 
emperor's arrival he at once rode off to Dover to 
welcome him in person. A few days later it was 
from his castle here that he started for that memor- 
able meeting with Francis I on the Field of the 
Cloth of Gold. Seeing that Henry's retinue on that 
occasion numbered more than four thousand five 
hundred persons, and that the attendants of his 
queen added more than a thousand to that total, it 
is obvious that the town and Castle of Dover must 
have presented an animated scene during the early 
summer of 1520. 

Few save the court officials and the custodians of 
the castle were aware of the visit of Charles V; he 
came almost as a thief in the night, and was gone 
again in a few days. But two years later Charles 
paid another visit to the English king, whom he was 
anxious to secure as his ally in a war with France. 
This interchange of kingly hospitality resulted in 
what has been described as " the most splendid 



Guardian of Albion's White Walls 17 

royal visit ever paid to England." That it devel- 
oped into such a gorgeous occasion seems to have 
been due to Charles's own preparations. In ac- 
cordance with the regal etiquette of the time, he 
forwarded to Henry a list of the attendants by 
whom he was to be accompanied, and when it was 
found that this list embraced more than two thou- 
sand names the English king realized that his own 
arrangements would have to be on a far greater 
scale than he had anticipated. 

Certain noblemen were duly commissioned to 
meet the emperor at Gravelines and Calais, the lat- 
ter town being then an English possession ; but the 
most elaborate of Henry's instructions were those 
which related to the preparations to be made in 
England itself. As the port at which Charles would 
arrive, Dover came first on the list, and it was ar- 
ranged that Cardinal Wolsey with numerous prel- 
ates and noblemen should be waiting there to wel- 
come the visitor in the name of the king. The town 
of Dover, so ran the royal commands, was to be 
'' plenteously provided and furnished with all man- 
ner victuals for horse and man," and sufficient car- 
riages were to be forthcoming to convey the em- 
peror's '^ stuff and baggage " on the next stage of 
his journey. Still more explicit were the orders 
for the preparation of his abode. ** Item," so reads 
the old document, " that the Castle be prepared, 
garnished, and ordered, for his lodging, with furni- 



18 Royal Castles of England 

ture of apparel, beds, victuals, and all things neces- 
sary for his honourable entertainment; and to the 
intent the said preparations may be sufficiently fur- 
nished, it is thought expedient, that the Controller 
of the King's household, with such other officers of 
the household as shall be thought necessary, shall 
see the provision there to be made for that pur- 
pose." 

It was, in fact, a busy time for Henry's officials. 
Details pieced together from other documents of 
the period give an animated picture of the hurry 
and scurry of the preparations. That Dover Castle 
might be equipped with sufficient sleeping accom- 
modation for the emperor and his train, the stores 
of the English king in his palace at Richmond, his 
Tower of London, and various other residences 
were pressed into service and transported to the 
coast. Here is an item which shows how three con- 
tractors were paid thirty pounds to carry ale and 
beer to Dover; there is an entry telling of other 
payments for the provision of various ^' dainties " 
and fish and torches and '' necessaries for kitchen 
and all other offices; " elsewhere full details are 
given of how the merchants' warehouses and the 
taverns of London were ransacked to insure a copi- 
ous supply of Gascon and Rhenish wine. One anx- 
ious official was in doubt as to whether Charles was 
expected to use his own linen and silver for table 
service, to be answered that as soon as he arrived 



Guardian of Albion's White "Walls 19 

at Dover he, as the guest of the king, was to be 
provided with Henry's own linen and silver. 

Much care, too, had been bestowed upon the time 
when and the place where the two monarchs were 
to meet. Wolsey, as has been noted, was deputed to 
greet Charles on his landing, and escort him to the 
castle; and the following day Henry was to " en- 
counter and meet with the said emperor upon the 
downs between Dover and Canterbury." That he 
might be in time to carry out his part of the pro- 
gramme, Henry arrived at Canterbury on the 27th 
of May, only to be greeted, however, with the news 
that his distinguished guest had already landed in 
his kingdom. For Charles was a day ahead of his 
time-table, having set out from Calais on the 26th 
of May and reached Dover at four o'clock the same 
afternoon. Happily Wolsey was already in at- 
tendance there, with a large retinue of earls and 
knights and prelates and yeomen, so that when the 
emperor stepped ashore nothing was lacking in the 
cordiality or pomp of his welcome. As soon as the 
monarch and cardinal had embraced, Charles took 
Wolsey by the arm and walked towards the waiting 
horses, on which they rode up to the castle. 

Owing to some delay in the arrival of the em- 
peror's baggage and many of his nobles, it soon 
became obvious that he would have to remain at 
Dover several days, whereupon Wolsey sent a mes- 
senger to Henry suggesting that he should join the 



20 Royal Castles of England 

emperor in the castle. To this the English king 
agreed, but in bidding the cardinal prepare for his 
accommodation in the castle he charged him to 
keep his coming a secret, ' ' to the intent that it may- 
appear to the emperor that his coming was of his 
own mind and affection to the emperor." His 
command was obeyed, and it is to be hoped that 
Charles was duly pleased with the unexpected ar- 
rival of his host. It was not until three days later 
that the two monarchs were able to set out on their 
progress toward the capital, but how they amused 
themselves, save for an inspection of Henry's fa- 
mous new ship, the Harry Grace a Dieu, does not 
transpire. One unhappy hour was in store for 
Charles V, for when he reached London he met 
there, radiant in her beauty, the Mary Tudor whom 
he might have married. Now she was the happy 
wife of an English noble, and the thought of what 
he had missed so moved the emperor that at a court 
ball given in his honour he refused to dance and 
" sat the whole evening silently and moodily 
apart." 

Two other notable episodes in the career of Henry 
VIII have left their impress on the annals of Dover 
Castle. The first belongs to the fall of 1532, when, 
although scarcely free from his matrimonial obli- 
gations to Catherine of Aragon, the uxorious 
monarch had succumbed to the charms of Anne 
Boleyn. His marital affairs, indeed, were in a sad 



Guardian of Albion's White Walls 21 

tangle; the divorce from Catherine had not been 
definitely decided, yet he was so much in the com- 
pany of Anne Boleyn that the Pope had thrice 
warned him of the error of his ways. At this junc- 
ture he resolved to demonstrate to the head of the 
Church that he was not without friends among the 
sovereigns of the day, and to that end he arranged 
an interview with the King of France at Calais. Of 
course he took Dover Castle on his journey going 
and coming, and, as though in defiance of papal in- 
terference, he carried with him the lady who was the 
cause of all the trouble. This was not Anne 
Boleyn 's first visit to Dover Castle, for she had 
been among the attendants who were in the train 
of Mary Tudor eighteen years previous. Time had 
indeed wrought a change, for now she came as a 
king's mistress and was on the high road to sharing 
his throne. Most of the old records are concerned 
with Henry's doings on the further side of the 
channel, but brief entries here and there show how 
he '^ took ship with the lady Anne Boleyn," how 
'' what she would have done was shortly finished," 
and how when the couple came back to the castle 
the infatuated king was sufficiently mindful of his 
religious duties to make an offering of four shillings 
and eight pence to " our lady in the Rocke at 
Dover," that is, to the Church of St. Mary within 
the castle precincts. 

Seven years later another prospective bride of 



22 Royal Castles of England 

the mucli-niarryiiig Henry was received as an hon- 
oured guest within the walls of Dover Castle. Dur- 
ing the interval merciful death had ended the sor- 
rows of Catherine of Aragon, and the headsman's 
sword had cut short the career of Anne Boleyn. 
To these had succeeded the gentle Jane Seymour, 
and she, too, had passed away in childbirth. And 
so it had befallen that by the late autumn of 1537 
Henry VIII was once more in need of a wife. At 
first his thoughts turned to the court of France, and 
he must have been highly flattered when Francis I 
assured him that there was not a lady of any degree 
in his dominions who should not be at his disposal. 
But when Henry suggested that Francis should 
meet him at Calais with a bevy of his beauties for 
him to choose from, the French king wrote that it 
was '' impossible to bring ladies of noble blood to 
market, as horses are trotted out at a fair." And, 
in the end, the royal candidate for a fourth wife 
was persuaded to think favourably of Anne of 
Cleves. 

That this lady could not speak any language save 
her own, that she could not sing or play any instru- 
ment, that her only accomplishment was a house- 
wifely skill in needlework, did not deter Henry 
from agreeing to make her his wife. He had fallen 
in love with a portrait. For Holbein had been com- 
missioned to paint the lady's likeness, and his mini- 
ature, set in a carved ivory box, was so satisfactory 



Guardian of Albion's White Walls 23 

that Henry speedily completed the treaty for the 
marriage. 

As soon as she reached Calais on her journey 
from Dusseldorf to England the ' ' most noble Prin- 
cess the Lady Anne of Cleves " enjoyed a right 
royal greeting, and careful arrangements were 
made for her welcome on the other side of the chan- 
nel. *' It is ordained," said a state paper of the 
period, " that at her grace's arrival at Dover, the 
duke of Suffolk, and lord warden of the cinque 
ports, with such other lords as be appointed to wait 
upon them, and the duchess of Suffolk, with such 
other ladies as be appointed to wait upon her, shall 
receive her at her landing, and so convey her to the 
castle, where her lodgings shall be prepared; and, 
giving their continual attendance upon her during 
her grace's abode there, shall, at her grace's de- 
parture from thence, conduct her to Canterbury, 
and so further till her meeting with the king's high- 
ness." That programme was duly observed, and 
the unfortunate Anne made her first and last ac- 
quaintance with the interior of Dover Castle, taking 
a brief rest there prior to starting for that meeting 
with her bridegroom-elect which was to prove how 
startling was the difference between Holbein's por- 
trait and its original. To Henry she was no more 
attractive than a '* great Flanders mare," and al- 
though he went through with the marriage he got it 
annulled with as little delay as possible. 



24 Royal Castles of England 

Altliougli Queen Elizabeth spent so much of her 
time in making progresses to and fro in her king- 
dom, she does not seem to have paid more than one 
visit to Dover Castle. And the records of that visit 
are exceedingly scanty. Judging, however, from a 
letter written by Lord Burghley, it would appear 
as though the queen and her courtiers expected to 
have a good time in the Kentish stronghold. Wri- 
ting in August, 1573, to one of his friends, Eliza- 
beth's chief minister told how the queen had had 
'' a hard beginning of a progress in the Weald of 
Kent," adding, ^' now we are bending to Eye, and 
so afterwards to Dover, where we shall have 
amends." Perhaps he was thinking of the " sweet- 
meats, fruits, etc.," which my Lord Cobham had 
provided against his sovereign's arrival at the 
castle. It was on a late August day that the Virgin 
Queen reached the downs above Folkestone, where 
she was awaited by the Archbishop of Canterbury 
and innumerable knights, who conducted her in 
great state to the castle, her advent being announced 
by the ringing of bells and the firing of cannon. 
Among other arrangements for the occasion, the 
corporation of Sandwich sent a special guard of a 
hundred armed men to attend her majesty as long 
as she remained in the castle. 

For more than half a century after that date no 
new royal association was added to the annals of 
Dover. Indeed it seems to have been neglected even 



Guardian of Albion's White Walls 25 

as a fortress, for five years after Elizabeth's visit 
the castle was reported to be " altogether unfur- 
nished ' ' in gunpowder and arms. This neglect was 
continued in the following century, until, in 1624, the 
House of Lords ordered a thousand pounds to be 
expended upon the repair of the building. That 
renovation was effected in the nick of time, as it 
was on a June Sunday evening of the next year 
that the castle once more received a royal guest. 
This was Henrietta Maria, the fair daughter of 
Henry IV of France, who was on her way to be- 
come the bride of Charles I of England. The 
young king was awaiting his bride at Canterbury, 
but on hearing of her arrival he determined to ride 
over to greet her the next day. So in the morning, 
at ten o'clock, while Henrietta was at her break- 
fast, the eager bridegroom arrived. '' The young 
queen, ' ' wrote a news-gatherer of the time, ' ' hasted 
down a pair of steps to meet the king, and then 
offered to kneel and kiss his hand; but he wrapt 
her in his arms, with many kisses." She had pre- 
pared a set speech for the occasion, ** Sire, I am 
come into your majesty's country to be at your 
command," but her emotion overcame her when she 
had got thus far, and further confession of obedi- 
ence was rendered unnecessary by Charles's decla- 
ration that he would be no longer master of himself 
save as her servant. And when, surprised that his 
bride was taller than he had expected, Charles 



26 Royal Castles of England 

looked down at her feet to see whether her height 
had not been increased by artificial means, she, 
divining his thought, answered the suspicion with, 
' ' Sire, I stand upon mine own feet : I have not help 
from art. Thus high I am; neither higher nor 
lower." A pretty scene, truly, the brightest per- 
haps of all those witnessed at royal gatherings 
within those sturdy walls. 

Another meeting graced by beautiful women 
forms practically the last chapter in the royal an- 
nals of Dover Castle. Forty-five years had passed, 
and Henrietta's son Charles was now king of Eng- 
land. His friends on the continent were distressed 
at his lukewarmness in the Catholic faith, and his 
much-loved sister, Henrietta, now Duchess of Or- 
leans, had undertaken to secure his assent to a 
treaty which was aimed at the ruin of the new faith. 
So Henrietta came to her brother in Dover Castle, 
which had been specially fitted up for her reception, 
and in her train, thanks to the artifice of Louis 
XIV, who knew the weakness of Charles II for a 
pretty face, was the lovely Louise de Keroualle. 
The English king promptly fell into the trap, and 
in six days, owing to the eloquence of Henrietta afld 
the blandishments of Louise, the treaty was signed. 
On the eve of his sister's return Charles, pointing 
to the fascinating Louise, begged her to leave him 
one of her jewels as a token of affection. To have 
consented at once would have been too clear a reve- 



Guardian of Albion's White Walls 27 

lation of the plot, but it was not long ere Louise 
returned to become the mistress of the Merry Mon- 
arch. That the two should have first met, within 
such a warlike stronghold as Dover Castle will fur- 
nish another parable for the moralist and might be 
cited as a gloss on the old story of Samson and 
Delilah. 



CHAPTER II 

THE HOME OF ANNE BOLEYN 
HEVER CASTLE 

Many a visitor to the romantic ruins of past gen- 
erations mnst often have sighed for the possession 
of unlimited wealth. What could be more delight- 
ful, he thinks, than to have the means to acquire for 
his own one of those picturesque buildings, restore 
it to the aspect it bore in the days when it was the 
home of some famous historical person, and spend 
the rest of his days amid such fascinating surround- 
ings? There have been cases in which this senti- 
ment has been fortified by command of an unlimited 
bank account, for in recent times not a few of the 
historic castles of England have been redeemed 
from ruin to become lordly habitations once more. 
A notable illustration of this transformation is pro- 
vided in the case of Hever Castle, that stately man- 
sion in a retired and beautiful corner of Kent which 
William Waldorf Astor has rescued from decay 
and restored to a lovely country home. 

Quite apart from its associations with the ro- 
mance and tragedy of Anne Boleyn, this stately 
building was worthy of its good fortune. Standing 
in a charming nook of the county which claims the 

28 



The Home of Anne Boleyn 29 

proud title of " the garden of England," set in an 
undulating countryside rich in grassy meadows and 
wooded groves, and encircled by the placid waters 
of the River Eden, Hever Castle, with its ancient 
moat, its noble entrance gateway, its oriel windows, 
its embattled walls, its spacious courtyard, its old- 
world gardens, did indeed deserve to be rescued 
from the ravages of the eroding hand of time. Al- 
though parts of the building are suggestive of the 
architecture of the reign of Edward III, the struc- 
ture as a whole is a splendid specimen of the castel- 
lated mansion of the fifteenth and sixteenth centur- 
ies, with here and there, as in the portcullis grooves 
and the arrow slits of the walls, a suggestion of 
those turbulent days when a baron's castle needed 
to be something more than a home. 

Yet it is highly probable that the memories rather 
than the beauties of Hever Castle were the occasion 
of its redemption from ruin. Ruskin has reminded 
us that the greatest glory of a building is its age 
plus that sense of mysterious sympathy which we 
feel in walls that have long been washed by the 
passing waves of humanity. ' ' It is not, ' ' he added, 
** until a building has assumed this character, till 
it has been entrusted with the fame, and hallowed 
by the deeds of men, till its walls have been wit- 
nesses of suffering, and its pillars rise out of the 
shadows of death, that its existence, more lasting 
as it is than that of the natural objects of the world 



30 Royal Castles of England 

around it, can be gifted with even so much as these 
possess of language and of life. ' ' Had Hever Castle 
not been the childhood home of Anne Boleyn, had 
it not been that its gardens and halls were the silent 
witnesses of her courtship by a king, it is likely 
that it would have been allowed to share the fate 
of many another ancient building. 

Not content with its indubitable connection with 
the early years of the ill-fated queen of Henry VIII, 
many of the historians of Hever Castle have claimed 
that it was also her birthplace. But that is a prob- 
lem which will probably never be solved. Homer 
was asserted to be a native of more than seven 
cities; Anne Boleyn, a less mythical character, has 
had her nativity located in three villages, one in 
Norfolk, another in Essex, and a third here in Kent. 
The probabilities seem to be in favour of Blickling 
in Norfolk, the chief home of her grandfather ; but, 
whatever the truth may be, it seems beyond dispute 
that at an early age she was removed to Hever 
Castle and spent most of her childhood there. Un- 
fortunately the same uncertainty prevails as to the 
year of her birth. The choice of dates lies between 
1501 and 1507, the latter having more in its favour. 
Indeed, until more definite information is forth- 
coming, Camden's assertion that she was born in 
1507 may be accepted as correct. 

When Anne Bolejna was born, Hever Castle had 
already been some forty years in the possession of 



The Home of Anne Boleyn 31 

the Boleyn family. The wealth of the family ap- 
pears to have been amassed by her great-grand- 
father, Sir Geoffrey Bolejm, a prosperous merchant 
who was Lord Mayor of London in 1457. Not satis- 
fied with the manor of Blickling, which he purchased 
from the Sir John Fastolf of the Paston letters, Sir 
Geoffrey also acquired the manor of Hever, and 
while his eldest grandson naturally succeeded to 
the Blickling estate, his second grandson, Thomas, 
the father of Anne, as naturally received Hever 
for his portion. That fact lends considerable sup- 
port to the legend which claims Hever as the birth- 
place of the future queen. 

Here, at any rate, it is agreed she spent her 
childhood, and the one letter of her early years that 
has survived is inscribed by her own hand ' ' written 
at Hever." According to the story told by Lord 
Herbert, she was a child of '' singular beauty and 
forwardness," and her i^arents, we learn, '' took all 
care possible for her good education." According 
to the letter just mentioned, one of her tutors was a 
Frenchman named Semmonet, but that she had 
other instructors is clear from her early proficiency 
in dancing, music, and other accomplishments. 
Anne Boleyn was always careless in not dating her 
personal letters, and unfortunately there is no year 
or month mentioned in her earliest epistle to her 
father. It seems highly probable, however, that it 
was written in the late summer of 1514, when she 



32 Royal Castles of England 

had been informed that she was to be one of the 
attendants of Mary Tudor on the occasion of that 
princess's marriage to the King of France. As the 
document gives us our first authentic glimpse of 
Henry's future queen, and as it was undoubtedly 
written from Hever Castle, it deserves to be in- 
cluded in the annals of that building. 

Addressing her father as '' Sir," she continued: 
** I find by your letter that you wish me to appear 
at court in a manner becoming a respectable female, 
and likewise that the queen will "condescend to enter 
into conversation with me. At this I rejoice, as I 
think that conversing with so sensible and elegant 
a princess will make me even more desirous of con- 
tinuing to speak and to write good French; the 
more so as it is by your earnest desire, which, I 
acquaint you by this present writing, I shall follow 
to the best of my ability. Sir, I entreat you to ex- 
cuse me if this letter is badly written : I can assure 
you the spelling proceeds entirely from my own 
head, while the other letters were the work of my 
hands alone : and Semmonet tells me he has left the 
letter to be composed by myself that nobody else 
may know what I am writing to you. I therefore 
pray you not to suffer your superior knowledge to 
conquer the inclination which you say you have to 
be of service to me. As to myself, rest assured that 
I shall not, ungratefully, look upon this office of a j 
father as one that might be dispensed with ; nor will 






The Home of Anne Boleyn 33 

it tend to diminish the affection you are in quest of, 
resolved as I am to lead as holy a life as you may 
please to desire of me: indeed my love for you is 
founded on so firm a base that it can never be im- 
paired." Such was the letter " written at Hever " 
by Sir Thomas's '' very humble and obedient 
daughter." 

Shortly after the penning of that epistle she jour- 
neyed away to France in the train of Mary Tudor, 
and in that country she remained for some seven 
years, for when Mary Tudor returned to England 
Anne Boleyn was taken into the service of the new 
queen of France. That sojourn at the French court 
must have had a pronounced effect in the moulding 
of her character and accounts for that sprightliness 
of manner and quickness of wit by which she was 
distinguished. 

When she was recalled home about the end of 
1521, or the beginning of the next year, she would 
naturally take up her abode at Hever Castle once 
more. Was it there, or in Wolsey's palace in Lon- 
don, or some other place, that she first attracted the 
notice of Henry VIII? It will be remembered that 
the Shakespearean play of '' King Henry VIII " 
locates the meeting in Wolsey's palace. According 
to the testimony of Cavendish, the famous cardinal 
was in the habit of arranging gorgeous entertain- 
ments of wine and women for the delectation of his 
royal master, and, by a poetic license, the dramatist 



34 Royal Castles of England 

availed himself of one of those gatherings as a 
means of introducing Henry to his future queen. 
But that is contrary to the picturesque legend which 
places the first meeting in the gardens of Hever 
Castle. The king, so the story goes, was paying a 
visit to Sir Thomas Boleyn, and came upon the 
daughter of his host while wandering in the grounds 
of his castle. Struck by her graceful carriage, he 
engaged her in conversation, quickly discovering 
that her gifts of speech were equal to her alluring 
demeanour. On his return to London the king re- 
ported his discovery to Wolsey; he had, he said, 
been talking with '* a young lady who had the wit 
of an angel and was worthy of a crown." Wolsey 
smiled. '' It is sufficient," he answered, '' if your 
majesty finds her worthy of your love." Henry, 
however, was confident she would " never conde- 
scend in that way. ' ' Wolsey thought otherwise ; if 
great princes, he rejoined, choose to play the lover, 
they had it in their power to soften a heart of 
steel. 

Now, there is an undated letter of Anne's which 
fits in with this legend. It would seem that Henry 
sent the maiden some testimony of the pleasure he 
had experienced in her company, in acknowledgment 
whereof she penned this frank epistle. 

' ' Sire, ' ' she wrote, ' ' it belongs only to the august 
mind of a great king, to whom Nature has ^ven a 
heart full of generosity towards the sex, to repay 



The Home of Anne Boleyn 35 

by favours so extraordinary an artless and short 
conversation with a girl. Inexhaustible as is the 
treasury of your majesty's bounties, I pray you to 
consider that it cannot be sufficient to your generos- 
ity ; for if you recompense so slight a conversation 
by gifts so great, what will you be able to do for 
those who are ready to consecrate their entire obe- 
dience to your desires? How great soever may be 
the bounties I have received, the joy that I feel in 
being loved by a king whom I adore, and to whom 
I would with pleasure make a sacrifice of my heart, 
if fortune had rendered it worthy of being offered 
to him, will ever be infinitely greater. The warrant 
of maid of honour to the queen induces me to think 
that your majesty has some regard for me, since it 
gives me the means of seeing you oftener, and of 
assuring you by my own lips (which I shall do on 
the first opportunity) that I am your majesty's very 
obliged and very obedient servant, without any re- 
serve." 

Were the charms of Anne Boleyn of the mind, or 
of the body, or of a blend of both ? That is another 
of the unsolved problems of history. " Madame 
Anne," wrote one chronicler of the time, '' is not 
one of the handsomest women in the world. She is 
of middling stature, swarthy complexion, long neck, 
wide mouth, bosom not much raised, and in fact has 
nothing but the king's great appetite, and her eyes, 
which are black and beautiful." Another reporter 



36 Royal Castles of England w^ 

was less complimentary. He noted that she had a 
projecting upper tooth, that she had a sixth finger 
on her left hand, that there was a protuberance on 
her neck, and that she was subject to asthma. Other 
writers, however, explain the sixth finger as being 
merely a double nail, and transform the protuber- 
ance into a mole which, by an ornamental collar- 
band, was actually the occasion of an added attrac- 
tion. ' 
But there is evidence of a contrary nature. Lord 
Herbert, as has been noted, spoke of her "■ singu- 
lar beauty " as a child, and added this eulogy of 
her charm as a woman: " Wlien she composed her 
hands to play and voice to sing, it was joined with 
that sweetness of countenance that three harmonies 
concurred. Likewise, when she danced, her rare 
proportions varied themselves into all the graces 
that belong to either rest or motion. " Of a kindred 
nature is the testimony of another witness. '* Her 
face and figure," he wrote, " were in other respects 
symmetrical ; beauty and sprightliness sat upon her 
lips ; in readiness of repartee, skill in the dance, and 
in playing on the lute, she was unsurpassed." To 
these tributes should be added the quaint panegyric 
of George "Wyatt, the grandson of that Sir Thomas 
Wyatt who anticipated Henry's admiration of the 
young lady of Hever Castle. '' There was at this 
time presented to the eyes of the court," wrote 
George Wyatt, '' the rare and admirable beauty of 



The Home of Anne Boleyn 37 

the fresh and young lady Anne Boleyn, to be attend- 
ant upon the queen. In this noble imp the graces of 
nature, graced by gracious education, seemed even 
at the first to have promised bliss unto hereafter 
times ; she was taken at that time to have a beauty 
not so whitely clear and fresh, above all we may 
esteem, which appeared much more excellent by her 
favour passing sweet and cheerful, and these both 
also increased by her noble presence of shape and 
fashion, representing both mildness and majesty, 
more than can be expressed. ' ' Nor, to complete the 
picture, should it be forgotten that Anne Boleyn 
was dowered with a glorious head of rich brown 
hair, which on state occasions she wore unloosed 
and adorned with rich jewels. 

If tradition speaks truly, Henry at first at- 
tempted to gratify his passion for Anne Boleyn on 
the easiest terms for himself; certainly her letter 
seemed to invite improper advances. It would ap- 
pear, however, that Anne quickly repented of her 
frankness, especially as it soon dawned upon her 
that she had but to play her cards adroitly to win 
the highest position in the land. So when her 
sovereign tempted her, she replied: '* Your wife I 
cannot be, both in respect of my unworthiness, and 
also because you have a queen ; your mistress I will 
never be! " And from that hour the king realized 
that he must assume the role of the lover and that 
his only hope of success in that character lay in his 



38 Royal Castles of England 

doing his utmost to secure a divorce from Catherine 
of Aragon. 

Anne's position at the court as maid of honour 
to Catherine of Aragon, while it gave her many 
opportunities to express how very much she was 
Henry's '' very obliged and very obedient servant," 
seems also to have contributed to the enflaming of 
the passion of her royal admirer. At length, how- 
ever, gossip began to be busy with the two, and it 
appears that it was at that juncture Anne was dis 
missed from Catherine's service and had to return 
to Hever Castle. 

And now began that courtship by letter which is 
unique in the annals of royal wooing. The lady's 
epistles have disappeared, but those penned by the 
enamoured king survive to bear testimony to hiS: 
constantly growing fascination. The chronology of 
the letters is uncertain, none of them having any 
date, but an expert in affairs of the heart would 
have little difficulty in arranging them in an approx- 
imate order. Such an authority, for example, 
would be able to trace the progress of Henry's in- 
fatuation by, for one thing, comparing the terms in 
which he addressed his lady-love. Now he writes 
to her as his '' mistress and friend," anon she is 
his '' good sweetheart," later the word is " dar- 
ling," and finally she is his " own darling." In 
the early letters he writes like a chivalrous young 
knight pining for a glimpse of his love's fair face. 



The Home of Anne Boleyn 39 

He reminds her of '' a point in astronomy," that 
is, ' ' the longer the days are, the more distant is the 
sun, and nevertheless the hotter; so is it with our 
love, for by absence we are kept at a distance from 
one another, and yet it retains its fervour, at least 
on my side." The pain of absence was already 
" too great " for him; his suffering would be in- 
tolerable had he not firm hope of her unchanging 
affection; it was a poor return for his '' great 
love " to be kept at a distance '' from the speech 
and the person of the woman that I esteem most in 
the world. ' ' A rumour reaches him that she is sick, 
and he sends her at post haste the best physician he 
can command, bidding her to be guided by his ad- 
vice, and assuring her that the news of her health 
will be more precious to him than all the jewels in 
the world. As touching her staying at Hever, she 
was to please herself, for she knew " best what air 
doth best with " her. 

There were interludes in this epistolary courtship 
apparently. As often as he could find suitable ex- 
cuse, Henry hurried down to Hever, and the tradi- 
tion of the countryside yet points out the hill over- 
looking the castle from the summit of which the 
royal lover used to sound his horn to give notice of 
his approach. The legends of the house, too, tell 
how the drawbridge was let down as soon as that 
familiar signal was heard, and point out a recess 
in one of the galleries which was fitted up as a 



40 Royal Castles of England 

throne for the king's visits. And another apart- 
ment is indicated as the bower of the fair lady who 
was the occasion of this regal favour. 

By and by the tone of the letters changes. The 
matter of the divorce from Catherine of Aragon 
was being attended to ; it would not be long ere he 
would be able to claim his chief joy on earth, the 
" care of his mistress." And so with the nearer 
approach of the day when he would be able to make 
her his wife he indulges in language that would 
have been more seemly from the pen of one of his 
stableboys. 

History has written at large the tragic sequel of 
this strange courtship. The price Anne Boleyn de- 
manded for her favours was duly paid, and then 
Hever knew her no more. But the pilgrim to these 
grey walls will reflect how happier had been her lot 
had she remained true to the ideal placed on her 
lips by the dramatist : 

" 'Tis better to be lowly born, 
And range with humble livers in content, 
Than to be perk'd up in a glistering grief, 
And wear a golden sorrow." 



CHAPTER IIP 

A STRONGHOLD OF MANY SIEGES 
ROCHESTER CASTLE 

London taverns and pleasure-gardens were more 
to the liking of Samuel Pepys than the most roman- 
tic of ancient buildings, but there were occasions 
when he turned aside for a moment to visit a ven- 
erable relic of the past. As witness this entry in 
his copious diary: '^ To Rochester, to visit the old 
Castle ruins, which hath been a noble place; but, 
Lord! to see what a dreadful thing it is to look 
upon the precipices, for it did fright me mightily. 
The place hath been great and strong in former 
ages." So Pepys wrote in 1665, and nearly a cen- 
tury earlier William Camden had been equally im- 
pressed by that majestic ruin, which, as he ob- 
served, was '' fortified both by art and situation." 
Yet even in Camden's days, more than three cen- 
turies ago, the glory of Rochester was a thing of 
the past. 

A map of England at the time of the Roman occu- 
pation explains why Rochester had been chosen as 
the site of a * ' great and strong ' ' castle. It was 
situated astride the high road that led from the sea- 
shore to the capital. Watling Street, one of the 

41 



42 Royal Castles of England 

most famous of the military highways constructed 
by the Eomans, began at Dover, deflected towards 
Canterbury, and then made straight for London, 
taking Eochester on the journey, where there was 
a ford across the River Medway. There were two 
reasons, then, why some kind of a fortress should 
be erected here, for it would serve the dual purpose 
of defending the highway and river alike. And for 
such a defence the rising ground on the south bank 
of the river provided an ideal site. Thus that emi- 
nence became fortified " by art and situation." On 
one side ran the Medway, '' with a violent course 
like a torrent, and, as it were, with a sort of strug- 
gling; " the other three sides could be defended by 
a moat and curtain walls. All traces of the Roman 
fort have long disappeared, but the numerous 
Roman coins which have been unearthed from time 
to time among the ruins of the castle would alone 
be sufficient to testify to the presence of the con- 
querors of the world. 

From the end of the Roman occupation to the 
Norman conquest of 1066 there intervened a period 
of more than six hundred years, during which time 
Rochester had to bear much of the brunt of the on- 
slaughts of the Saxon and Danish pirates from over 
the North Sea. As the Medway empties into the 
estuary of the Thames, it was natural for Saxons 
and Danes to push their predatory vessels up the 
river, and as natural that the growing town of 



A Stronghold of Many Sieges 43 

Rochester should invite their attacks. So the early 
chronicles of English history, with their abrupt 
records that '' This year so and so happened," are 
replete with terse sentences which show how this 
corner of Kent was often ravaged with fire and 
sword. '' During the Danish wars," says the his- 
torian of the county, " Rochester frequently suf- 
fered from the inhumanity of those barbarians, this 
city being often besieged and plundered by them, the 
enemy in general committing unheard-of cruelties 
before they returned to their ships." 

Nor was it otherwise when William of Normandy 
had conquered the land. Two years after the battle 
of Hastings a large portion of the land of the coun- 
try had been divided among the barons and other 
leaders who had assisted William in his contest with 
Harold, and a map which illustrates that apportion- 
ment of the spoil shows that that district of Eng- 
land now known as the county of Kent had passed 
into the possession of Odo the Bishop of Bayeux. 
Now Odo was the half-brother of the Norman con- 
queror, and was a typical example of the fighting 
prelate of the middle ages. It is true he affected 
the mace as his weapon rather than the sword, thus 
subscribing to that subtle distinction which pro- 
hibited the warrior-churchman from using a weapon 
likely to cause the shedding of blood, but in all other 
respects he seems to have been as determined a 
fighter as the most sanguinary of the secular 



44 Royal Castles of England 

barons. He was, in fact, just the type of man to be 
given charge of a county so open to attacks from the 
continent as that of Kent, and the old clironicle 
testrfies how he " wrought castles wide amongst the 
peoi^le, and poor folk oppressed." Many a warlike 
expedition did he lead in different parts of England, 
always distinguishing himself by the indiscriminate 
manner in which he harried guilty and innocent 
alike. 

Being given so much authority by his half- 
brother, Odo at length developed vast ambitions. 
He aspired to be Pope of Rome, building himself a 
palace in that city and preparing the way for his 
election by copious bribery. But when knowledge 
of this came to the ears of William he promptly 
clapped his ambitious half-brother into prison, and 
there he remained until William Rufus seized the 
English throne. That event was the cause of Odo 's 
undoing. Released from prison, he made common 
cause with those Normans in England who were 
more in favour of the claims of Robert, the eldest 
son of the conqueror, and placed himself at their 
head. The civil war that followed came to a climax 
before the walls of Rochester Castle. 

As soon as he realized his danger William Rufus 
issued a proclamation to the nation. " Let every 
man," he said, " who is not a nithing quit home 
and hearth, and hasten to the standard of his sover- 
eign." That epithet worked like magic. No Eng- 



A Stronghold of Many Sieges 45 

lishman wished to be branded as a '^ nithing," that 
is, a cipher, or a villain, and consequently within a 
few days the Red King found himself at the head 
of an army of thirty thousand men. Then the hunt 
of Odo began. He took refuge at first in Pevensey 
Castle, but after a siege of seven weeks was com- 
pelled to surrender. And then he swore an oath 
to the Red King that he would not only leave the 
country but would also yield to him his strong castle 
at Rochester. That he might fulfil that promise 
Odo was sent to Rochester with an escort of Nor- 
man knights, but when the little band reached the 
fortress on the Medway the knights were arrested 
by Odo's friend the Earl of Boulogne and prepara- 
tions were at once made to resist an attack. Will- 
iam Rufus was naturally furious. In a short time 
he led his army to the castle and pressed the siege 
with great vigour. For a while Odo was full of 
confidence; as the old chronicle has it, there were 
" some very good knights " in the castle, five hun- 
dred of whom, it is said, fought upon the battle- 
ments. 

But the expected relief from Robert of Normandy 
came not, and in the end, either through famine or 
pestilence, the defenders were forced to capitulate. 
The English in the Red King's army pleaded with 
their leader to grant no quarter, but the Normans 
among his followers persuaded him to allow the 
besieged to march out with their arms and horses 



46 Royal Castles of England 

on the understanding that they would at once leave 
the countiy. On learning this good news, Odo, with 
matchless effrontery, demanded still more lenient 
terms, stipulating that the royal trumpeters should 
be restrained from sounding their instruments as 
the garrison marched out ! But that was more than 
William Eufus would grant. '* I wouldn't make 
such a concession," he angrily answered, '' for a 
thousand gold marks." Thus it was to resounding 
blasts on the royal trumpets that the first Norman 
siege of Eochester Castle was ended. And as Odo 
passed between the ranks of the victors some of the 
English shouted, '^ Bring us cords; we will hang 
this traitor bishop with all his accomplices. king ! 
why dost thou let him go free! " But the Red King 
kept his word, and Odo was allowed to leave Eng- 
land in safety, never more to return or rule his 
earldom of Kent. 

Various guesses have been made as to the identity 
of the builder of that part of Rochester Castle 
which has survived to this day. Roughly speaking, 
only the noble keep remains, a lofty structure which 
dominates the city and is a conspicuous landmark 
for twenty miles around. Ann Radcliffe, the author 
of ^' The Mysteries of Udolpho," for whom all 
ancient buildings had a singular fascination, was 
naturally struck by its majestic aspect. "As we 
descended the hill towards Rochester," she wrote, 
^' how solemn the appearance of the Castle, with 



A Stronghold of Many Sieges 47 

its square ghostly walls, and their hollow eyes rising 
over the right bank of the Medway, grey and mas- 
sive and floorless — nothing remaining but the 
shell! " By some historians the credit of rearing 
that sturdy keep has been attributed to Odo of 
Bayeux ; others have named William the Conqueror 
as its builder. Camden favoured the latter view, 
because he found it recorded in Domesday that the 
Norman duke had presented the Bishop of Roches- 
ter with a tract of land elsewhere in exchange for 
the site " on which the castle is seated." But all 
this implies merely that there was a castle here at 
the time of Odo's rebellion; not that the castle of 
the siege above described is the building which still 
exists. 

Several bishops seem to have had a hand in erect- 
ing the surviving keep, for the churchmen of the 
Middle Ages were architects as well as warriors. 
The truth appears to be, then, that the structure as 
we know it to-day was begun by Bishop Gundulf 
and completed by Archbishop William of Corbeil. 
This means that the existing keep dates back to 
somewhere about the year 1130, thus giving to the 
building a venerable antiquity of some eight hun- 
dred years. 

One of the apartments which has probably under- 
gone little alteration during those eight centuries 
is that sombre vaulted den under one of the towers, 
whfch is pointed out as the state prison of the castle, 



48 Royal Castles of England 

the fetid walls of which seem eloquent of human 
agony. Without the smallest window, and with no 
connection with the outside world save by the mas- 
sive door, those who were thrust within this terri- 
ble dungeon must indeed have abandoned all hope. 
It is hardly probable, however, that the first distin- 
guished prisoner of Rochester Castle, Robert, Earl 
of Gloucester, made the acquaintance of this for- 
bidding den. A natural son of Henry I, he espoused 
the cause of his half-sister Matilda when she re- 
sisted the usurpation of Stephen, and, by an ad- 
verse turn of fortune 's wheel, fell into the hands of 
the enemy and was sent prisoner hither. But as he 
was soon exchanged for Stephen himself it is im- 
probable that he was confined in the state prison. 

Eighty-five years after William of Corbeil had 
proved himself so competent a builder the strength 
of his workmanship was put to a severe test, for 
the next siege of Rochester Castle was a far more 
serious affair than that which led to the downfall 
and exile of Bishop Odo. Towards the close of the 
reign of King John the dispute between that mon- 
arch and his barons reached a climax. This was the 
beginning of that struggle for reform which was to 
continue many years and leave its impress on the 
history of the fortress on the banks of the Medway. 
The barons' programme seems a modest affair in 
these days, for all they demanded from their king 
was the simple boon of free and unbought justice 



A Stronghold of Many Sieges 49 

for the nation at large, with special provision for 
the protection of the poor. But John was little in- 
clined to listen; '' Why," he asked, *' do they not 
ask for my kingdom? " At last, however, he was 
compelled to put his name to Magna Charta, only 
to annul that document as soon as his forces were 
strengthened by the arrival of hordes of foreign 
mercenaries. 

Now, it so happened that at this crisis the com- 
mand of Rochester Castle was held by William de 
Albini, one of the barons who had signed Magna 
Charta. Such a fortress, occupying so important a 
position on the highroad between London and the 
continent, could not be allowed to remain in the 
hands of the baronial party, and consequently John 
at once decided to besiege it in person. 

But he had undertaken a heavier task than he 
had anticipated. William de Albini was an accom- 
plished soldier, his garrison was numerous and 
valiant, and the castle had been well prepared for 
a siege. Besides, the barons in London had prom- 
ised to come to the relief of the fortress if it were 
attacked. It was on the eleventh of October, 1215, 
that John invested the stronghold with a large 
force, but day after day went by and week merged 
into week and still the defenders were able to keep 
the king at bay. '* No siege in those days," wrote 
an old historian, '' was more earnestly enforced, 
nor more obstinatelv defended." 



50 Royal Castles of England 

One day, however, as an ancient story tells, there 
came an opportunity which had it been seized would 
have ended the siege and the whole civil war at one 
stroke. According to the version of William Beat- 
tie, on a morning when De Albini was making his 
round of the battlements, he was thus accosted by 
a favourite cross-bowman: 

'' Seigneur, behold the tyrant! " pointing at the 
same instant to the well-known person of King 
John, who was cautiously reconnoitring the weak- 
ened points of the castle. 

" Well," said De Albini, "it is the king; what 
wouldest thou? " 

" Shall I take him off, by your leave? " said the 
bowman, suiting the action to the word and adjust- 
ing a steel bolt to the bow-string; '' shall I despatch 
this swift messenger to his highness? Only say the 
word. ' ' 

'^ Nay, God forbid! " said De Albini, raising his 
hand to check the rash attempt — ' ' forbear ! it is 
the king." 

" Very well, seigneur," said the bowman, with a 
mortified air, ''be it according to your pleasure. 
Only, methinks that were the tyrant in your 
place, and you on the outwork yonder, there 
would be no ' God forbid ! ' 'Tis a fine target, sei- 
gneur! " 

But De Albini would not consent. Even the plea 
of the bowman that the horse-flesh and the fresh 



A Stronghold of Many Sieges 51 

water of the garrison were nearly exhausted could 
not persuade him to allow an attempt on the life of 
an *' anointed " king. 

By this time the siege had lasted nearly seven 
weeks. Some progress had certainly been made 
towards the reduction of the castle, for part of the 
outer wall had been sapped, and the defenders had 
been obliged to take refuge in the keep. A mine 
was laid under one of the corners of that tower, but 
when a breach had been made in the wall and John 's 
soldiers attempted to force an entry, they were re- 
pulsed with great loss. On the last day of Novem- 
ber, however, the besiegers were surprised to find 
the gate of the castle flung open. A moment later 
the gallant defenders marched out and appealed to 
the king's mercy. Lack of water and food had 
compelled unconditional surrender. The fate of the 
garrison as a whole is unknown ; one legend affirms 
that John ordered all the common soldiers to be 
hung; another asserts that only one cross-bowman 
was executed, in harmony, perhaps, with the story 
cited above. It is certain, however, that the life of 
William de Albini was spared, though he was cast 
into prison and mulcted in a heavy fine. 

Half a century later another armed force gath- 
ered outside the walls of Rochester Castle. It was 
the old trouble over again; although a new king, 
Henry III, was on the throne, there were still two 
parties in the state, the reformers and the royalists 



52 Royal Castles of England 

whose interest it was to support the monarch in his 
exactions. Henry III had made many promises to 
his dissatisfied barons, he even took solemn oaths 
to carry out the provisions of Magna Charta, but 
as soon as his skin was out of danger he reverted 
to his old courses. The highest offices in the state 
were given to aliens ; he taxed his subjects that he 
might be generous to his foreign relatives. Hence 
the renewal of the civil war, and this time the re- 
formers had a capable leader in the person of Simon 
de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. 

Matters came to a serious climax in the spring of 
1264; early in April De Montfort realized that it 
was necessary to reduce the Castle of Eochester, 
which was being held for the king by the Earl de 
Warenne, and he carried with him to the siege all 
kinds of novel military engines, the use of which he 
had learnt in his foreign campaigns. His first dif- 
ficulty was to force the passage of the river, for the 
castle defenders had taken the precaution to secure 
the wooden bridge which spanned the Medway. 
Such a momentary check, however, was no serious 
obstacle to so experienced a soldier as De Montfort ; 
seizing a vessel higher up the river he loaded it with 
all kinds of inflammable materials, set light to the 
cargo, and allowed the burning mass to drift down 
stream to the bridge. The plan answered admir- 
ably; very quickly the bridge caught fire, and its 
defenders were glad to fall back on the castle for 



A Stronghold of Many Sieges 53 

refuge. At that moment De Montfort led his force 
over the river, and the siege proper began. He had 
also despatched a section of his army to attack the 
castle from the opposite side, and in a few days had 
made such progress with the investment that the 
fortress must have speedily fallen had not news 
reached De Montfort that the king was threatening 
an attack on London, which necessitated his return 
to the capital. The little company of his soldiers 
who were left to continue the blockade fell into the 
clutches of the relieving force and were cruelly 
maimed in their hands and feet. Such was the 
finale of the last serious attack on Rochester Cas- 
tle. 

But in the centuries to come it was to garner a 
few more royal associations. Here was located one 
of the halting-places of that regal progress by which 
Henry VIII conducted Charles V to his capital in 
1522; and it was to Rochester that, on New Year's 
day of 1540, Henry hastened to have his first 
glimpse of the ill-favoured Anne of Cleves, an in- 
terview which failed to '' nourish love " in the way 
the king had anticipated. Rochester, too, if not the 
castle, can claim the honour of a visit from Henry's 
great daughter Elizabeth, for the Virgin Queen 
halted for five days in the city at the end of her 
progress through Kent in 1573. Here also Charles 
II made a stage in his journey towards London on 
the occasion of his '' happy restoration " in 1660 j 



54 Royal Castles of England 

and, finally, twenty-eight years later, it was under 
the shadow of Eochester Castle walls that James II 
stepped into the vessel that bore him away from the 
kingdom he was never to rule again. 



I 



CHAPTER IV 

A QUEEN AT BAY 
LEEDS CASTLE 

A YEAK before Samuel Pepys had discovered 
" what a dreadful thing " it was to " look upon the 
precipices " of Rochester Castle, his famous rival 
in the diary-keeping business, John Evelyn, had also 
been castle-hunting in the fair county of Kent. The 
explanation was that Evelyn had been appointed 
one of the commissioners for the care of the prison- 
ers of the Dutch war. Hence his need of a building 
suitable for the secure detention of those unfortu- 
nate beings. Such a structure he found in Leeds 
Castle, then the property of Lord Culpeper, which 
was strongly situated on the Roman road a few 
miles from Maidstone. There are several refer- 
ences to the fortress in Evelyn's diary, the first 
telling how, after a pleasant visit to one of his 
cousins, he journeyed the following morning to 
Leeds Castle, " once a famous hold, now hired by 
me of my Lord Culpeper for a prison. Here I 
flooded the dry moat, made a new drawbridge, 
brought spring water into the court of the castle to 
an old fountain, and took order for repairs." Sev- 
eral months later he was at the castle again, mus- 
tering his six hundred prisoners, ordering *' their 

55 



56 Royal Castles of England 

proportion of bread to be augmented ' ' and furnish- 
ing them with clothes and firing. Ere another year 
went by Evelyn had the pleasant duty of discharg- 
ing all his prisoners and restoring the castle to its 
owner. 

If any of those Dutch and French sailors were 
sensitive to the appeal of romance, and had any 
knowledge of the history of the fortress in which 
they were confined, they must have deemed them- 
selves favoured beyond all other prisoners of that 
war. For by the middle of the seventeenth century 
Leeds Castle had entered into a heritage of associ- 
ations such as gave it great distinction among the 
historic buildings of England. 

There are good reasons for believing that a for- 
tress of some kind was built on this site in Anglo- 
Saxon days, for the earliest date in the history of 
the castle takes us back to the close of the ninth 
century. When the county of Kent became the 
property of that Bishop Odo who figures in the 
previous chapter the Anglo-Saxon building was still 
in existence, but it seems probable that when the 
manor once more reverted to the king, owing to 
Odo's rebellion, and was presented to a more faith- 
ful baron, its new owner signalized his good fortune 
by pulling down the old and rearing an entirely new 
castle. This reconstruction was carried out a little 
subsequently to 1088, the year of Odo's forfeiture, 
but it must not be imagined that all the present 



A Queen at Bay 57 

castle dates back to that far-off time. No doubt the 
expert in such matters will be able to trace Norman, 
architecture here and there, but the building as it 
stands is a compound of many centuries and many 
styles. For example, the structure now used as a 
boathouse was once a swimming-bath, the erection 
of which is credited to Edward I who is thought to 
have built it in 1290. Other portions of the castle, 
such as the Maidens' Tower, were constructed dur- 
ing the reign of Henry VIII. When Horace Wal- 
pole visited the place in 1752 he was so much in love 
with what he thought was Gothic architecture that 
he had not patience enough to search out the exam- 
ples of other styles which are blended in the build- 
ing; all he admired was the moat, which he voted 
a '' handsome object, and is quite a lake, supplied 
by a little cascade which tumbles through a bit of 
a romantic grove." That wide-spreading moat, 
which is fed by the adjacent River Len, is still one 
of the most attractive features of this historic 
building. 

Although Edward I and his chere reine, the faith- 
ful Eleanor of Castile, visited Leeds Castle several 
times in the late thirteenth century, and despite the 
fact that in those days the building was often used 
for the entertainment of distinguished guests from 
abroad, it was not until 1321 that it figured promi- 
nently in the annals of English history. 

And once more the occasion had its origin in those 



58 Royal Castles of England 

feuds between king and lords which were so com- 
mon in the England of the Middle Ages. In this 
case, however, it was not so much a question of re- 
form in government as the idiotic favouritism of 
Edward II which enraged the nobles. Edward was 
too great a fool to learn by experience; '* his only- 
object in life," is the verdict of an impartial his- 
torian, '' was to gratify the whim of the moment, 
reckless of consequences." The tragedy which 
overtook his first favourite, Piers Gaveston, did not 
warn him against taking another in the person of 
the younger Hugh Despenser, for whose sake he 
had, by 1321, once more incurred the enmity of 
many of the principal nobles. He had been obliged 
to exile that second favourite, but a chance event of 
this year gave him the opportunity to engineer his 
recall. 

It so happened that on an October day his queen, 
Isabella the Fair, who had not yet won for herself 
the coarse epithet of ^' the She-wolf of France," 
took it into her head to anticipate Chaucer's pil- 
grims by making a journey to the shrine of Thomas 
a Becket at Canterbury. Starting, apparently, from 
London, Isabella determined to make the pilgrimage 
by easy stages, and as Leeds Castle formed a part 
of her dower it occurred to her that that would be 
an excellent place in which to halt for the night. It 
should be remembered, however, that at that time 
the castle had been committed to the charge of Lord 



A Queen at Bay 59 

Badlesmere, who, as it so happened, was away from 
home, taking counsel with some of the barons who 
were stoutly opposed to the king and his favourite. 
He had left his wife in charge of the castle, and 
appointed one Sir Thomas Culpeper as his deputy 
captain. Such was the situation at Leeds Castle 
when Isabella the Fair made up her mind to lodge 
within its walls for the night. 

In order that due preparation might be made for 
the reception of herself and retinue, Isabella sent 
one of her marshals forward to announce that she 
was on her way to the castle, and that she purposed 
spending the night under its roof. But that royal 
messenger had an untoward reception. Despite the 
fact that the castle was really royal property, and 
that it was the queen herself who asked its hospi- 
tality, the marshal was roundly informed by Lady 
Badlesmere that she would not admit any one with- 
out an order from her husband, and that the queen 
would have to seek some other lodging ! And even 
while that truculent message was conveyed to Isa- 
bella's marshal, the queen herself arrived before 
the castle with her train. Alarmed by the appear- 
ance of such a company, and inferring that an at- 
tack was intended, Sir Thomas Culpeper bade his 
men shoot on the queen's escort, and they handled 
their bows with such effect that six of Isabella's 
attendants fell dead. 

An amazing reception that for a queen asking ad- 



60 Royal Castles of England 

mittance to her own castle! But, for the moment, 
there was nothing to be done save to seek a night's 
lodging elsewhere. That Isabella was furious at 
being kept at bay outside one of her own castles was 
natural ; and it was equally natural that she should 
hurry back to her husband the king and urge him to 
take revenge on Lady Badlesmere for her inso- 
lence. 

Edward was nothing loath to avenge the insult 
to his wife; under the cover of such an excuse he 
might gather together a force which he could also 
use against his rebellious lords. It made matters 
all the worse for the daring occupants of Leeds 
Castle that Lord Badlesmere actually wrote to Isa- 
bella saying he fully approved of his wife's action 
in refusing to admit her into that fortress. So 
Edward issued a mandate to his subjects, calling 
upon them for their assistance to punish the indig- 
nity offered to his queen. His beloved consort, the 
document stated, had been treated with contempt 
by the family of Badlesmere, who " had insolently 
opposed her in her desire of entering Leeds Castle," 
and to add to this insult Lord Badlesmere '* had by 
his letters approved of this misconduct of his fam- 
ily in thus obstructing and contumeliously treating 
the queen; " wherefore '' a general muster of all 
persons between the ages of sixteen and sixty is 
called to attend the king in an expedition against 
Leeds Castle." 



A Queen at Bay 61 

That call to arms was promptly obeyed. The 
men of London flocked to the king's standard in 
great numbers, for, as the biographer of Isabella 
has stated, '' the queen was the darling of the na- 
tion, and all were ready to avenge even the shadow 
of a wrong that was offered to her." News of the 
gathering of the king's army fled apace to Leeds 
Castle, and hasty preparations were made for the 
expected siege. Lady Badlesmere no doubt had full 
confidence in the strength of her fortress, besides 
anticipating that her husband and the forces of the 
rebel lords would soon come to her relief. But her 
expectation of succour was to be disappointed, and 
Edward and his force pressed the siege of the castle 
with such vigour that the defenders were obliged to 
surrender the fortress in less than three weeks after 
Lady Badlesmere had denied admission to the 
queen. There was short shrift for Sir Thomas Cul- 
peper; he was tied to the tail of a horse, dragged 
out of the castle, and hung on the drawbridge ; and 
a dozen more of the leading spirits of the garrison 
were also summarily put to death. My Lady 
Badlesmere and her children were hurried off to 
prison in the Tower of London, and ere many 
months had gone by her husband was captured, exe- 
cuted, and contributed his head to the adornment 
of the city gate of Canterbury. 

Some eighty years later another king came to 
Leeds Castle. But when Richard II passed within 



62 Boyal Castles of England 

these walls lie was in a far different case than was 
Edward II when he besieged them from without. 
As was to be the case with Edward a few years 
after his revenge of his queen, by the time Kichard 
came to Leeds Castle he had fallen into the hands 
of his enemies. Legend affirms that he had been 
solemnly warned whither his policy of tyranny was 
leading him ; a hermit had admonished him that if 
he did not amend his ways he would shortly hear 
such news as would make his ears tingle. But Eich- 
ard was heedless of the hint that Henry of Lan- 
caster was aiming at the crown, and now he had 
reaped the reward of his indifference. For, during 
Eichard's absence in Ireland, Henry, welcomed by 
a disaffected people, had carried all before him, and 
when the king returned to England he was speedily 
made prisoner. Pending his deposition he was con- 
fined in several fortresses, Leeds Castle being one 
of the number, and an old story tells how he was 
brought hither disguised as a forester. Another 
tradition avers that about the same time his twelve- 
year-old queen, Isabella of Valois, was also confined 
in this Kentish stronghold. Either Shakespeare 
did not know or ignored these legends; and so it 
befell that Leeds Castle has no immortality in the 
tragedy of " The Life and Death of Eichard the 
Second." 

At the time when Eichard II was a prisoner in 
Leeds Castle that fortress was in the possession of 



A Queen at Bay 63 

Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, under 
whose command, some thirteen years later, it was 
made the scene of a striking episode in the conflict 
of the Church with the doctrines of the Lollards. 
One of the chief supporters of the new faith was 
Sir John Oldcastle, whose influence was such that 
it was deemed expedient to secure his recantation 
or visit him with the censure of the Church. But 
Sir John was obdurate. Not even for his king 
would he renounce his religious opinions. So Arch- 
bishop Arundel took the matter in hand. He ap- 
pointed a day for the examination of the heretic, 
and commissioned one of his servants to serve Sir 
John with a citation to appear before him at Leeds 
Castle on a certain day. That messenger, however, 
found it impossible to serve the summons, for Sir 
John refused to admit him to his castle. Where- 
upon the archbishop gave orders that the citation 
should be publicly posted on the doors of Rochester 
CatJiedral, and on the day appointed assembled his 
court in " the greater chapel " of Leeds Castle. 
That everything might be in due order, the com- 
plaint against Sir John Oldcastle was duly formu- 
lated, and then the officer of the court was com- 
manded to call for the appearance of the heretic 
defendant. Of course there was no answer. Sir 
John had paid as little attention to the summons on 
the door of Rochester Cathedral as he did to the 
visit of the archbishop's messenger. There was 



64 Royal Castles of England 

only one thing for the head of the Church to do. 
* * After proclamation made, ' ' he reported in his ac- 
count of that day's proceedings, *' and we had long 
waited, and he not appearing, we justly pronounced 
him, as he was, contumacious; and then and there 
returned him excommunicated, in punishment for 
so high contumacy." Like the Jackdaw of Rheims, 
Sir John does not seem to have been '' one penny 
the worse " for that cursing by bell and book and 
candle; at least, the archbishop was to lie in his 
grave several years ere the heretic was at length 
laid by the heels. 

In the fifteenth century no one could be confident 
that he would not be brought to trial for some of- 
fence or other. Laws are supposed to have multi- 
plied greatly in modern days, which is doubtless 
true, but in the ** good old times " so many things 
were deemed worthy of punishment that the modem 
man has a far greater chance of escaping an ap- 
pearance in a court than his unfortunate prede- 
cessor of the fifteenth century. Even the highest 
in the land were not exempt from the danger. 

Take the case of Joan of Navarre as an example. 
As the widow of Henry IV she was, in 1418, on per- 
fectly friendly relations with her step-son, Henry 
V, and yet a little later she was suddenly arrested 
and made a prisoner in Leeds Castle. The exact 
nature of the charge against her is unknown to this 
day; the old records have some vague reference to 



A Queen at Bay 65 

her attempting to compass the death of the king 
" in the most horrible manner that could be de- 
vised, ' ' and it has been thought that the offence for 
which she was imprisoned was that of witchcraft. 
The man who made the accusation, a friar named 
John Randolph, was rewarded in an unexpected 
manner, for he was put to death; the queen- 
dowager was deprived of her property and kept 
in close confinement for several years. When 
she was released, in 1422, she was at Leeds 
Castle. 

A month after the order for Joan's release was 
signed the king, Henry V, whose life she was sup- 
posed to have threatened, was removed by death 
from all danger of witchcraft. But his successor, 
Henry VI, had not been a decade on the throne when 
another trafficker with the powers of darkness was 
brought to book within the walls of Leeds Castle. 
Once more, too, the culprit was a woman, none other, 
in fact, than Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester. Her 
husband, it will be remembered, was the youngest 
son of Henry IV, and as Duke of Gloucester, — 
" the good Duke Humphrey " as he was strangely 
called, — he was for many years, during the minor- 
ity of Henry VI, practically ruler of the land. 
Eleanor, his second wife, the daughter of Lord 
Cobham, was a beautiful but a greedy and ambitious 
woman, and she seems to have thought that by re- 
sort to the black arts it might be possible for her 



66 Royal Castles of England 

husband to attain tlie throne and make her queen 
of England. 

Under that conviction she made friends with 
many professors of necromancy, including Eoger 
Bolinbroke, Thomas Southwell, and a woman 
known as the Witch of Eye; " to whose charge it 
was laid," said an old historian, '' that these four 
persons should, at the request of the said duchess, 
devise an image of wax like the King, the which 
image they dealt so with, that by their devilish in- 
cantations and sorcery they intended to bring out 
of life, little and little, the King's person, as they 
little and little consumed that image." This was 
a serious matter in the fifteenth century, as Eleanor 
found to her cost when she was hailed to Leeds 
Castle and put upon her trial within the walls which 
witnessed the excommunication of Sir John Old- 
castle. To some of the counts she pleaded guilty, 
and indeed, if Drayton had any insight into her 
character, she had a full share of the witch temper- 
ament. For in the poem which Drayton makes her 
address to her husband she utters a stirring impre- 
cation on one of her female enemies : 

" 0, that I were a witch but for her sake! 
I' faith her queenship Uttle rest should take: 
I'd scratch that face that may not feel the air, 
And Jinit whole ropes of witch-knots in her hair: 
0, I would hag her nightly in her bed, 
And on her breast sit like a lump of lead, 
Add like a fairy pinch that dainty skin, 
Her wanton blood is now so cocker 'd inl " 



A Queen at Bay 67 

As the result of her trial in Leeds Castle, this 
gentle lady was doomed to a penance in the streets 
of London, through which she had to walk for three 
days bareheaded and with a lighted taper in her 
hand to offer at the various churches she passed. 
And then she was committed to prison for the rest 
of her days. The warrant for her commitment is 
a singularly interesting document when read in the 
light of recent history. Those officials who were 
charged with the duty of seeing to her imprison- 
ment were warned not to allow any '* sickness or 
any dissimulation of her " to thwart them in the exe- 
cution of their task. Which would seem to indicate 
that the feigned sickness and hunger-strike of the 
modern suffragette were anticipated by Eleanor, 
Duchess of Gloucester, so long ago as 1431. 



CHAPTER V 

PLOTTING MURDER FOR THE KING 
SALTWOOD CASTLE 

'' By what strange chances do we live in his- 
tory ! ' ' exclaimed Carlyle. He might have included 
buildings as well as men in that apostrophe. For it 
is true of many an ancient castle in England that 
had it not been for some one untoward event it 
would never have emerged from its obscurity as the 
home of a forgotten line of nobles. This is emi- 
nently the case with Saltwood Castle, though for a 
vivid appreciation of its chief association with 
twelfth century history it is necessary to recall 
several scenes which were enacted far away from 
its walls. 

On a June Sunday of 1162 one Thomas a Becket 
had been consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. 
To succeed to such a position was a great change 
for a man who had hitherto been a statesman and 
a soldier. But he was a notable favourite with 
Henry II, and that monarch was under the impres- 
sion that if he appointed his friend to the headship 
of the Church he would find in him a valuable as- 
sistant in his policy of strengthening the power of 
the throne. Becket himself was little inclined to 
change his secular for a sacred office. He was fond 

68 



Plotting Murder for the King 6d 

of his gay attire as the chancellor of the king, and 
when Henry first intimated that it was his wish he 
should become archbishop he, pointing to his gor- 
geous dress, exclaimed with a laugh, " You are 
choosing a fine dress to figure at the head of your 
Canterbury monks ! ' ' And there was another rea- 
son why Becket dreaded the office. ' ' You will soon 
hate me as much as you love me now," he warned 
the king; '* for you assume an authority in the af- 
fairs of the Church to which I will never assent." 
Despite that prediction, Henry insisted upon hav- 
ing his way, and Becket was duly installed as the 
chief prelate of the realm. 

In less than a year his prophecy began to be ful- 
filled. Whenever any conflict arose between the 
claims of the Church and the king the new arch- 
bishop at once took the side of his own order. The 
outcome of all this was that in a little more than 
two years after his consecration Becket fled from 
England to seek an interview with the Pope. Nor 
did he return until nearly six years had elapsed. 
In October, 1170, the king and archbishop met at 
Amboise and effected a kind of reconciliation, and 
Becket agreed to return to England on the under- 
standing that he should be restored to his lands 
and honours as head of the English Church. When 
he set out on his journey he carried with him letters 
from the Pope which gave him power to deal as he 
thought best with the Archbishop of York and the 



70 Royal Castles of England 

Bishops of London and Salisl^ury, all of whom had 
taken part in the coronation of Henry's son and 
thus infringed one of the rights of the See of Can- 
terbury. 

Learning that there was a plot to waylay him on 
his landing and seize his papal letters, Becket took 
the precaution to send those letters on in advance 
by a trusted messenger, who delivered them to the 
three prelates. By those documents the Archbishop 
of York was suspended from his office and the 
Bishops of London and Salisbury excommunicated. 
As soon as Becket reached England the three prel- 
ates urged him to release them from suspension and 
excommunication, and when he refused they pre- 
pared to cross into Normandy to lay their case 
before the king in person. 

Becket 's welcome home was as enthusiastic as he 
could have wished. But there was a dark lining to 
the silver cloud. When he attempted to approach 
Henry's son, he was bidden '' go and perform his 
sacred ministry at Canterbury." And he soon 
learnt that one of his principal castles, namely Salt- 
wood Castle, was still in the possession of Eandulf 
de Broc, to whom it had been granted by the king, 
and who made it clear that he was not inclined to 
yield it up again to its owner. Nor was that all. 
Randulf persisted in hunting the deer of the arch- 
bishop 's woods, while another member of the family 
waylaid and cut off the tails of a horse and mule 



Plotting Murder for the King 71 

belonging to Becket. Such was the condition of 
affairs when Christmas-day came round. It found 
the archbishop in no forgiving mood. In the Vul- 
gate version of the gospel that text which in modem 
times reads " On earth peace, good will to men," 
wa-6 written '^ On earth, peace to men of good will," 
and that was the text Becket selected for his Christ- 
mas sermon. There was no peace, he said, save to 
men of good will. Such a text suited his stern pur- 
pose in that Christmas homily. He denounced the 
three bishops who had encroached on the coronation 
rights of the See of Canterbury and excommuni- 
cated them ; he passed sentence upon several vicars 
who had accepted charges without his authority; 
and then, with the fierceness of a prophet, he ful- 
minated against the insults offered to him by Ran- 
dulf de Broc and his family and solemnly cursed 
them all. 

Meanwhile another scene had been enacted across 
the channel in Normandy. The three prelates who 
had incurred the displeasure of Becket made their 
way to the court of Henry at Bur-le-Roi, and 
reached the castle shortly before Christmas. The 
object of their visit has already been explained; 
but in addition to informing the king of their own 
grievances they had an alarming tale to tell of the 
high-handed manner in which the returned arch- 
bishop was conducting himself. What did they ad- 
vise, Henry asked. " Take council with your bar- 



72 Royal Castles of England 

ons," they rejoined; " it is not for us to say what 
should be done." And then one of their number 
added the significant remark: '* As long as Thomas 
lives, you will have neither good days, nor peaceful 
kingdom, nor quiet life." 

Those words, as Dean Stanley remarked, 
'' goaded the king into one of those paroxysms of 
fury to which all the earlier Plantagenet princes 
were subject, and which was believed by themselves 
to arise from a mixture of demoniacal blood in their 
race. ... Of such a kind was the frenzy which he 
showed on the present occasion." Tennyson has 
put his outburst into poetry, preserving with mar- 
vellous faithfulness the words which are attributed 
to him by the chroniclers of the time : 

" No man to love me, honour me, obey me! 

Sluggards and fools! 

The slave that eat my bread has kick'd his King! 

The dog I cramm'd with dainties worried me! 

The fellow that on a lame jade came to court, 

A ragged cloak for saddle — he, he, he, 

To shake my throne, to push into my chamber — 

My bed, where ev'n the slave is private — he — 

I'll have her out again, he shall absolve 

The bishops — they but did my will — not you — 

Sluggards and fools, why do you stand and stare? 

You are no king's men — you — you — you are Becket's men. 

Down with King Henry! up with the Archbishop! 

Will no man free me from this pestilent priest? ' • 

Whatever Henry may have meant by his impas- 
sioned exclamation, ''Not one will deliver me from 



Plotting Murder for the King 73 

this low-born priest! " to four of his knights who 
heard the outburst the words seemed to bear but 
one interpretation. Those four were Reginald 
Fitzurse, Hugh de Moreville, William de Tracy, and 
Richard le Bret, and, on the day following Christ- 
mas, they were suddenly missing from Henry's 
court in Normandy. Travelling two by two, per- 
haps to avoid suspicion, they made their way to the 
French coast, embarking thence for the opposite 
shore of England. Although two of them landed 
near Dover and the other two at a port some thirty 
miles distant, legend avers that the four knights all 
reached their destination within an hour of each 
other, being guided thereto, as the old monks as- 
serted, by the agency of the devil. That destination 
was none other than Saltwood Castle, standing 
then, as now, on the slope of a valley within sound 
and sight of the sea. 

Had the four knights known what had taken place 
in the Cathedral of Canterbury on Christmas-day, 
had they heard the denunciation and excommunica- 
tion of Randulf de Broc, had they seen Becket hurl 
his candle to the floor as a symbol of the extinction 
of the man he had cursed, those travellers from 
across the Channel could not have chosen a more 
suitable haven than Saltwood Castle. The news of 
their approach seems to have been conveyed to the 
excommunicated lord of the fortress, for the old 
story affirms that De Broc was waiting to welcome 



74 Royal Castles of England 

his visitors from the king's court. No detailed ac- 
count of what passed between the five was ever 
placed on record; but it is violating no probabilities 
to imagine that the conversation between the five 
men was confined largely to the events of the last 
few days as they had transpired in England and 
Normandy. Randulf de Broc would be full of the 
news of his own excommunication, while the four 
knights would have much to tell their host of the 
fury of the king and his impassioned exclamation: 
*' Not one will deliver me from this low-born 
priest!" What was to be done? As king's men it 
behoved them to make proof of their loyalty and 
devotion. And so, as the old stories tell, those five 
sat together, or, at least, the four knights, all 
through that winter afternoon plotting how they 
could '' deliver " their sovereign. And the twilight 
fell, and then night settled down in darkness, and 
still the four, with candles unlit so that they 
could not even see each others' faces, laid their 
plans within the secure shelter of Saltwood Cas- 
tle. 

Such sleep as came to them that night they en- 
joyed under the same roof, but in the morning they 
were early astir. Their first act was to issue an 
edict in the name of the king for a troop of soldiers, 
and when that escort had assembled they rode off 
in the direction of Canterbury, some fifteen miles 
distant. In the afternoon they sought an interview 



Plotting Murder for the King 75 

with Becket, an interview, however, which resulted 
in nothing more than an angry discussion. But the 
attendants of the archbishop had a premonition of 
what would be the end of that day's history, and at 
length they pleaded with their master to take refuge 
in the adjacent Cathedral. Nor did he reach that 
sacred haven much too soon, for the knights, who 
had gone for their arms, quickly returned and fol- 
lowed Becket through the cloister into the main 
building. Dusk had fallen, and for the moment the 
knights could not distinguish their prey. '* Where 
is Thomas Becket, traitor to the king? " one of them 
called out. There was no reply; but when another 
shouted, " AVhere is the archbishop? " Becket him- 
self instantly rejoined, ' ' Here I am, no traitor, but 
the archbishop and priest of God. What do you 
wish? " For a few minutes there was an angry 
interchange of threats and defiance; the soldier's 
blood awoke in Becket 's veins, and more than once 
he hurled his assailants from him; in stinging 
phrase, too, the archbishop was more than a match 
for the four knights. But the unequal conflict was 
soon decided; one blow almost severed the crown 
of his head, and as he fell to the pavement another 
of the knights scattered his brains on the stones, 
exclaiming, ' ' Let us go. The traitor is dead ; this 
man will rise no more." 

So did the four knights '' deliver " their king 
from that '' low-born priest." And no sooner had 



76 Royal Castles of England 

they accomplished their task than they rushed from 
the Cathedral, mounted their horses, and sped back 
to Saltwood Castle. There they remained through 
the night of that thirtieth of December, 1170, but in 
the morning they took horse again and halted not 
until they had journeyed more than forty miles 
from the castle in which they had plotted murder 
for the king. But so long as the story of Thomas 
a Becket is told so long will the imagination turn to 
this ancient building as a memorial of that terrible 
crime. 

Remembering the abject penance by which Henry 
II tried to convince the world that he was not 
responsible for the murder of Becket, it might be 
imagined that he took the earliest opportunity to 
deprive Randulf de Broc of Saltwood Castle and 
restore it to the See of Canterbury. It seems, how- 
ever, that he did nothing of the kind ; that, in fact, 
it was not until his son John succeeded to the throne 
nearly twenty years later that the castle and manor 
of Saltwood reverted once more to the temporal 
possessions of the head of the Church. From that 
date, 1199, to the time of the suppression of the 
monasteries, the castle knew no other owner than 
the archbishop for the time being. It was Thomas 
Cranmer who, alarmed at the remarks which were 
made about the temporal possessions of the Church, 
thought it wise to forestall any possible demand on 
the part of the crown and voluntarily presented 



Plotting Murder for the King 77 

Henry VIII with the building and all the land which 
belonged to it. 

During the interval, and especially in the thir- 
teenth and the early part of the following century, 
Saltwood Castle seems to have been in the occupa- 
tion of various knights, who, of course, held it as 
tenants of the Archbishop of Canterbury. When, 
however, William Courtenay succeeded to the See 
in 1381, that prelate, being of noble descent, ap- 
pears to have realized that the castle would make 
an admirable archiepiscopal palace, with the result 
that he had the building largely reconstructed and 
its amenities enhanced by the addition of a beauti- 
ful park. It is affirmed, indeed, that Saltwood 
Castle became his favourite place of residence, and 
a reference to the old records of the corporation of 
"New Eomney shows that he was often dwelling 
there. The officials of that corporation were keenly 
alive to the advantage of being on good terms with 
Archbishop Courtenay, for they frequently sent him 
presents at the expense of the town. Thus in the 
year 1389 there is an entry which runs : ' ' Paid 
eleven shillings and twopence for fish sent to the 
Archbishop, being at Saltwood; " and the expendi- 
ture of the following year included this item : " Paid 
for capons and cygnets sent to the Lord Archbishop 
of Canterbury, at Saltwood, and horses hired for 
the same, with messengers, twenty-seven shillings 
and tenpence.'* 



78 Royal Castles of England 

Archbishop Courtenay's arms may yet be seen on 
various parts of the building, and there is still told 
in that Kentish countryside a story which suggests 
the kind of man he was. Offended one day by the 
slovenly manner in which some of his tenants had 
delivered straw at the castle, he summoned them 
into his presence and made them take oath that they 
would carry out whatever he commanded. On their 
promise being given he ordered them to form into 
a procession, and to each man was assigned a sack 
of straw to carry, as an object lesson that it was 
possible to handle straw without littering it all over 
the castle courtyard and grounds. The anecdote 
gives support to the view that Archbishop Courte- 
nay though a man of hasty temper was not lacking 
in good nature. 

Although a later archbishop, Thomas Bourchier, 
purchased the manor of Knowle and transformed 
the mansion there into the chief palace of himself 
and his successors, he did not wholly abandon 
Saltwood Castle. Thus the annals of the corpora- 
tion of Lydd show that in 1455 a sum of twenty-two 
pence was expended * ' for two horsemen two times, 
riding to speak with the Archbishop, coming from 
Appledore riding to the Castle of Saltwood.'^ 
Such records as these, however, are of but mod- 
erate interest compared with the part the cas- 
tle played in the murder of Becket, yet they 
serve to illustrate the curious Nemesis by 



I 



Plotting Murder for the King 79 

which the very building in which that deed was 
plotted became for many years the chief country 
palace of the successors of that ill-fated 
prelate. 



CHAPTEE VI 

HELD FOR THE KING 
LEWES CASTLE 

Among tlie many ancient fortresses of England 
which live in history by reason of that struggle 
between king and nobles ont of which grew the lib- 
erty of more modern days Lewes Castle can claim 
a distinguished pre-eminence. For the battle-field 
on which its towers looked down on a May day of 
1264 was the birthplace of that legislative assembly 
in which the commoners of the nation were at length 
summoned to become the associates of the prelates 
and peers in moulding the laws of the land. 

But by the date of that most notable conflict of 
the Barons' War the town of Lewes could already 
boast an ancient history. The neolithic and bronze 
implements, which have been unearthed from the 
tumuli and earthworks of the surrounding hills, 
afford convincing proof of the existence of a human 
settlement here long prior to the Roman conquest 
of Britain, while the numerous relics of the world 
conquerors, such as coins and pottery and rings and 
fibulae, which have been recovered from time to time, 
are sufficient evidence that this pleasant spot on a 
spur of the South Downs was once a Roman station. 
Legend avers that a castle was reared here in Saxon 

80 



Held for the King 81 

days, and that Alfred the Great was its builder, but 
if that were the case all traces of the building have 
wholly disappeared. The written word, however, 
bears testimony to the fact that Athelstan, the king 
of the West Saxons, established two mints at Lewes 
in the tenth century, and that by the eleventh cen- 
tury, when Edward the Confessor was king of the 
English, there existed an ordered community with 
its own curious laws. 

As is the case with so many other towns, it is in 
the pages of the Domesday Book of Norman Will- 
iam that we get our first authentic picture of this 
historic spot. That record tells how Lewes con- 
tributed an annual sum of six pounds and four 
shillings to the exchequer of Edward the Confessor, 
how, in addition, his hundred and twenty-seven bur- 
gesses were responsible for a further sum of twenty 
shillings when the king made war, and how the 
number of houses amounted to nearly four hundred, 
representing a population of some two thousand 
souls. The town was ruled by stringent laws in 
those far-off days of the eleventh century. Thus if 
a man or woman was caught in adultery each was 
fined eight shillings and fourpence, and '' the king 
hath the adulterer, and the archbishop the woman." 
Murder was deemed a less heinous offence in those 
turbulent days, for the fine of a mere shedder of 
blood was but seven shillings. Buying and selling 
were made to contribute to the town funds, for 



82 Royal Castles of England 

when a horse changed owners the seller and the 
purchaser had alike to pay a penny to the provost. 
And, as in those days human flesh was as market- 
able as horse flesh, it was stipulated that when a 
man was sold the bargain was only lawful when the 
seller and the purchaser paid fourpence to the chief 
officer of the town. 

Such, in substance, is the earliest written page of 
Lewes history, the actual words of which, firmly 
inscribed on vellum, may yet be seen in the Public 
Record Office of London ; for the earliest record in 
stone a visit must be paid to that re-built church 
which nestles under the shadow of the castle walls. 
When Camden explored that building it was ' ' quite 
desolate, and overgrown with bramble," but the 
curious monument which most attracted his atten- 
tion, an arch made of sixteen stones and bearing an 
archaic inscription, has been carefully preserved in 
the more modern building. The inscription is in 
quaint Latin, which has been rendered in English 
thus: 

" Intombed a soldier here of royal race, 

Magnus his name, from mighty Danish source, 
Resigned his title, gave the Lamb his place, 
And closed as lowly eremite his course." 

Who this Magnus was is an unsolved problem. One 
theory makes him the youngest of Harold's three 
sons; another describes him as a Danish general 
who, on being defeated in a battle near Lewes, aban- 



Held for the King 83 

doned the sword for the cross and spent the rest of 
his days as a monk. 

Soon after the Norman Conquest of 1066 a new 
chapter opened in the history of Lewes. As a re- I 
ward for his services at the Battle of Hastings, \ 
William de Warren was presented with about a 
sixth part of the county of Sussex and established 
his chief seat in this town. Here, then, he reared 
his castle, some of the remains of which yet form a 
part of the structure as it exists to-day. Nor did 
that exhaust his activities as a builder. His castle 
made him sure of the world that now is ; to give him 
a lien on the world to come he erected a house of 
prayer. The old chronicles tell that Earl Warren 
and his wife Gundrada, who is thought by some to 
have been a daughter of William the Conqueror, 
were on a pilgrimage to Rome when they were pre- 
vented from accomplishing their object by the sud- 
den outbreak of war. At that juncture they were 
offered the hospitality of the monastery of Cluni, 
where they were entertained so liberally that they 
resolved to give tangible form to their gratitude by 
founding a daughter house of that order in their 
own town of Lewes. 

Hence the Priory of St. Pancras, the scarred 
relics of which still stand in a meadow to the south 
of the town. Founded in 1077, the priory, which was 
the first of the Cluniac order to be erected on Eng- 
lish soil, sent many a mitred prior to the parliament 



84 Royal Castles of England 

of the land, and flourished apace for more than four 
and a half centuries. The end came in 1537, when 
an agent of Henry VIII arrived in Lewes armed 
with full authority to raze the building to the 
ground. The letter in which that iconoclast re- 
ported his zealous labours may yet be read among 
the manuscripts in the British Museum, and sets 
forth the " manner and fashion " employed in 
undermining the pillars and tearing down the 
walls. 

Little escaped the destroying hands of the de- 
spoilers of the old monasteries, but it appears that 
some reverent spirit did rescue the tomb of Gun- 
drada. After many adventures that interesting 
memorial at last found a resting-place in a little 
chapel adjoining one of the churches of the town, 
where also are deposited the leaden coffers of Gun- 
drada and her husband, which were unearthed dur- 
ing some railway excavations. The tomb is of 
black marble; the Latin inscription has been hap- 
pily paraphrased thus ; 

" Her age's glory; of the tree of Dukes a noble shoot, 

Gundrada, England's churches hath replenished with the fruit 

And the sweet odour of her graces. Martha-like, replete 

With charity towards the poor; she sat at Jesus' feet 

Like Mary — Now her Martha's part is given to the tomb, 

Her Mary's better part, in heaven, eternally shall bloom. 

holy Pancreas! well canst thou her pious deeds attest; 

Her heir she makes thee; as thy mother take her to thy breast. 

The sixth before June's calends 't was that broke — oh fatal dayl - 

The alabastrum of her flesh, and sent her soul away." 



Held for the King 85 

That memorial, and the leaden coffers that held 
the dust of the Earl Warren and his wife, should 
appeal with singular force to the pilgrim to Lewes, 
for they help towards a realization of the man and 
woman whose castle and priory were to play so 
prominent a part in the deadly struggle between 
Henry III and his barons. 

By the spring of 1264 the tension between the 
king and many of his nobles had reached the 
breaking-point. Nor is it possible for any impartial 
person to read the history of those days without 
marvelling at the patience which had been shown 
towards the English sovereign. His inherent un- 
fitness to rule is now generally admitted; Hume's 
verdict that he was '' too feeble to sway a sceptre 
whose weight depended entirely on the firmness and 
dexterity of the hand which held it " cannot be 
gainsaid. But in addition to his being unfit to con- 
duct war and ill fitted to maintain peace, he must 
be pronounced guilty of a far heavier indictment. 
So little of a patriot was he that he filled every 
office and command with men of alien birth; " they 
exhausted the revenues of the crown, already too 
much impoverished ; they invaded the rights of the 
people; and their insolence, still more provoking 
than their power, drew on them the hatred and envy 
of all orders of men in the kingdom." When these 
upstart foreigners, secure in the favour of the 
king, were chided with their offences against the 



86 Royal Castles of England 

laws of the land, they rejoined : ' ' What do the Eng- 
lish laws signify to us? We mind them not." 
Henry was also a willing tool in the hands of the 
papacy, agreeing complaisantly to all the usurpa- 
tions and exactions of Rome. The chief benefices 
of the kingdom were granted to Italians, while the 
king's own foreign chaplain is credited with holding 
no fewer than seven hundred church livings! 

(Nor was that all. In the preceding reign the 
barons had wrested Magna Charta from John, the 
new king's father, but Henry violated that charter 
again and again. When his needs made it necessary 
to apply to parliament for money he swore to ob- 
serve the charter ; when the money was in his hands 
he perjured his oath. Once, indeed, his solemn 
promise to ratify the Great Charter took this form : 
'' So help me God, I will keep all these articles in- 
violate, as I am a man, as I am a Christian, as I am 
a knight, and as I am a king crowned and anointed." 
Yet hardly had he sworn his faith thus than he 
returned to his old courses of tyrannous govern- 
ment. No wonder the patriotic barons insisted that 
he should dismiss his foreign advisers and give a 
sufficient pledge for the observance of Magna 
Charta. 

In a previous chapter it has been explained that 
Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, the leader of 
the baronial party, had been obliged to abandon the 
siege of Rochester Castle owing to London being 



Held for the King 87 

threatened by the king's forces. As soon as it was 
known, however, that the redoubtable Montfort was 
marching to the capital, the king thought better of 
his purpose, and, accompanied by his warlike son 
Edward, marched away in a southward direction- 
It soon transpired that his objective was the town 
of Lewes, where, as he knew, he could count upon 
the support not only of his half-brother, John, Earl 
Warren, but also upon the assistance of those other 
lords who held the castles of Pevensey, Hastings 
and Arundel. Besides, Lewes is close to the shores 
of the English Channel, and was thus within easy 
reach of men and money from the continent. Al- 
together it was a wise stroke of strategy which de- 
termined Henry to gather his forces in and about 
this town. The priory would furnish ideal head- 
quarters for a man so ostensibly pious as he; the 
castle would be a more seemly abode for his mili- 
tant son. By the eleventh of May, then, the king 
had established himself at the priory of Lewes and 
his son Edward had become the guest of his uncle 
in the castle. 

Two days after the royalists had pitched their 
camp in and around Lewes, the baronial army, with 
Montfort at its head, arrived at a village some nine 
miles to the north of the town. Before leaving 
London the leader of the reformers had taken coun- 
sel with the chief men of his party, and it had been 
resolved that as soon as the two forces came within 



88 RoyaJ Castles of England 

touch, of each other a final effort should be made 
to arrange their differences in a peaceful manner if 
possible. In agreement with that policy, on the 
morning of the thirteenth of May two prelates, the 
Bishops of London and Worcester, set out on an 
errand of peace from the camp of the barons. They 
were instructed to offer the king monetary compen- 
sation for such destruction of property as the sup- 
porters of the barons had been guilty of, and in 
addition they bore a letter to Henry signed by 
Montfort and the Earl of Gloucester. Addressed 
to the king in the most complimentary terms, 
the essential sentences of that epistle were these: 
" Since it is apparent by many proofs that cer- 
tain persons among those who surround you, 
have uttered many falsehoods against us to your 
Lordship, devising all the evil in their power, not 
only towards us, but towards yourself and the whole 
kingdom: May your Excellency know, that as we 
wish to preserve the health and safety of your per- 
son with all our might, and with the fidelity due to 
you, proposing only to resist by all means in our 
power those persons, who are not only our enemies, 
but yours, and those of the whole kingdom, may it 
please you not to believe their falsehoods." 

Nor was that all. The two bishops were also 
authorized to say that Montfort and his party were 
willing to submit their case to the arbitration of a 
jury of churchmen. But all these proposals were 




THE ENTRANCE GATEHOUSE, LEWES CASTLE. 



I 



Held for the King 89 

treated with derision by the royalists. The inter- 
view took place in the refectory of the priory, the 
walls of which resounded with the laughter of the 
king's friends when they had heard Montfort's 
letter read and been acquainted with his suggestion 
for arbitration. 

" Then rose on high their haughty cry, 
' Shall churchman's word rule soldier's sword? 
Knighthood's debased, 'neath priest laid low.' " 

One of the chief spokesmen for the royalists was 
the king's son Edward, who exclaimed: ^' They 
shall have no peace whatever, unless they put hal- 
ters round their necks, and surrender themselves 
for us to hang them up or drag them down, as we 
please." The royalists, in short, were confident 
that an appeal to the sword must be decided in their 
favour, for they had in their camp an army of some 
sixty thousand men compared with the forty thou- 
sand commanded by Montfort. 

So the weakling king was persuaded to return a 
haughty reply to all the overtures of the barons. 
In his letter of answer he rebuked Montfort and his 
associates for their '* lawless " oppressions, de- 
clared that he accepted as his own the grievances 
and enemies of the lords who were with him, and 
roundly added : ' ' We, therefore value not your 
faith or love, and defy you, as enemies." But that 
was not the only document which the two bishops 



90 Royal Castles of England 

were instructed to carry back to the Ijarons. The 
king's brother Richard, who prided himself on his 
high-sounding title of " King of the Romans," and 
the king's son Edward sent a letter of their own, 
in which the barons were informed that they were 
all defied as " public enemies by each and all of us 
your enemies, and that henceforth, whenever occa- 
sion offers, we will, with all our might, labour to 
damage your persons and property. ' ' And nothing 
that the bishops could urge was of any avail to 
mitigate the boastful spirit of the supporters of the 
king. 

\ That night the scenes in the rival camps nine 
miles from each other presented a strange contrast. 
Montfort spent the hours of darkness in anxious 
preparations and earnest prayer, and in token of 
the high resolve of his army each soldier painted a 
white cross on his chest and back. In Henry's 
camp, and especially in the priory, the night was 
given over to song and dance and wine-cup revelry. 
It is true the royalists posted a watch on the hill 
which overlooked their camp, but towards morning 
all save one returned to the town, and the solitary 
sentinel soon fell fast asleep. 

By sunrise Montfort and his army began their 
march to Lewes, and in so secret a manner that the 
sleeping sentinel was taken prisoner and the heights 
above the town occupied ere the royalists were 
aware that the enemy was upon them. From the 



Held for the King 91 

towers of the castle there floated the banner of the 
monarch, symbol that it was being held for the king, 
while the priory was surrounded by a dense crowd 
of men in warlike array. Once the alarm had been 
given, the king's knights and soldiers quickly pre- 
pared themselves for the inevitable conflict, Prince 
Edward being conspicuous among the leaders. In- 
deed, no sooner had the trumpets sounded than he 
swept forward to the attack, his special objective 
being that section of Montfort's army which con- 
sisted almost entirely of the untrained citizens of 
London. The young prince had a particular grudge 
against the citizens of the capital; they had, he 
thought, insulted his mother; now was his hour of 
revenge. But his impetuous onslaught was his un- 
doing. The Londoners, unused to the shock of arms, 
soon broke before the attack, and in a flash were in 
full retreat. Edward and his men followed, fol- 
lowed for mile after mile, until at length they were 
far from the battlefield. 

This was Montfort's opportunity. One section 
of the royal army was gone ; all that remained for 
him to do was to hurl his own force forward ere 
Edward could return. For a time the contest waged 
stubbornly, but in the end Montfort's superior 
generalship triumphed, and ere the young prince 
came back all was over. The barons had won a 
notable victory, even though they had not been able 
to capture the castle itself. The king fell a prisoner 



92 Royal Castles of England 

into their hands, and Edward himself had to become 
a hostage for his father's safety. Out of that con- 
flict, as hinted above, there came into existence the 
first germ of the House of Commons, a fact which 
enhances the interest of the battlefield beneath the 
towers of Lewes Castle. For the American pilgrim, 
too, that scene should possess a singular attraction. 
It appears to be highly probable that an ancestor of 
George Washington fought with the barons who 
triumphed at the Battle of Lewes, a worthy fore- 
runner of that other member of his race who with- 
stood the tyranny of a king. 



CHAPTER Vn 

THE PRISON OF THE MARTYR KING 
CARISBROOKE CASTLE 

Late in a November night of the year 1647, Oliver 
Cromwell, then encamped with his Roundheads at 
Putney, was the recipient of a startling message. 
The king, Charles I, was missing from his palace- 
prison a few miles distant. Summoning a few at- 
tendants, the Puritan general was quickly in the 
saddle and riding in all haste towards Hampton 
Court. 

\ And when he arrived at that mansion by the side 
of the Thames, Cromwell learnt that the report was 
no idle rumour. The king had verily fled. Little 
by little the story of that night's happenings was 
unfolded by the valiant Colonel Whalley, who had 
been made responsible for the safe-keeping of 
Charles Stuart. It seems that a little before eve- 
ning prayer the king, as was his wont, had retired 
to his private chamber, where, however, he stayed 
longer than usual. At first no importance was at- 
tached to his prolonged absence, but as the minutes 
went by without his return suspicion began to be 
aroused, and when at length a favourite greyhound 
was heard to be whining within suspicion gave place 
to fear that something untoward had happened. A 

93 



94 Royal Castles of England 

few days earlier Cromwell had written to Colonel 
Whalley to warn him that there were rumours 
abroad " of some intended attempt on his Majesty's 
person; " was it possible that the attempt had been 
hazarded and that the king had been assassinated? 
Alarmed at such a possibility, Colonel Whalley 
forced an entrance to the king's retiring room, only 
to discover that he was missing. A further exam- 
ination showed that he had left the palace and made 
his way to a gate in the garden-wall, outside which 
were the telltale marks of horses' hoofs. 

When he returned to the king's room Colonel 
Whalley found that the missing monarch had left 
several letters on his table, all in the royal hand- 
writing, and one specially addressed to himself. On 
opening the latter, this is what he read under date 
of November 11th : ' ' Colonel Whalley : I have been 
so civily used by you and Major Huntington, that 
I cannot but by this parting farewell acknowledge it 
under my hand; as also to desire the continuance 
of your courtesy, by your protecting of my house- 
hold stuff and moveables of all sorts, which I leave 
behind me in this house, that they be neither 
spoiled or embezzled : only there are three pictures 
here which are not mine, that I desire you to re- 
store; to wit, my wife's picture in blue, sitting in 
a chair, you must send to Mistress Kirke ; my eldest 
daughter's picture, copied by Belcam, to the Count- 
ess of Anglesey; and my Lady Stanhope's picture 






^M' 




The Prison of the Martyr King 95 

to Carry Eawley; there is a fourth which I had 
almost forgot, it is the original of my eldest daugh- 
ter (it hangs in this chamber over the board next 
to the chimney) which you must send to my Lady 
Aubigny. So, being confident that you wish my 
preservation and restitution, I rest your friend, 
Charles R." 

Such was the message Colonel Whalley read by 
the candle-light of that November night. But below 
the royal signature there was a postscript. It was 
not the letter of warning, the king added, which had 
resolved him to escape; he was loath, he said, " to 
be made a close prisoner, under pretence of secur- 
ing my life." And then there was another after- 
thought: he had almost forgotten the black grey- 
hound which had been his companion in that place ; 
would he return the dog to the Duke of Richmond? 

Among the other letters which Charles had left 
on his table was one addressed to the two houses 
of Parliament, the purport of which was somewhat 
contradictory to the postscript of his epistle to 
Colonel Wlialley, for in that document he remarked 
that his personal security was the ' ' urgent cause ' ' 
of his '' retirement." As Cromwell read those 
words he must have realized that his own warning 
letter to Colonel ^Vlialley was partially responsible 
for the king's resolve to escape, and that conse- 
quently he must do his utmost to recover the fugi- 
tive. But it was now midnight, and all that was 



96 Royal Castles of England 

possible for him to do at such an hour was to pen a 
letter to the speaker of the House of Commons re- 
porting the stubborn fact that Charles was miss- 
ing. 

' Cromwell's letter from Hampton Court, written 
at " Twelve at night," was read in the House of 
Commons the following day. Prompt action was 
taken, orders being at once given for the closing of 
the seaports and for search to be made near and 
far. As rumour reported that the king was con- 
cealed somewhere in London, the Commons or- 
dained that any one guilty of giving him shelter 
should be punished with loss of estates and life. 
This was on Friday, but neither on that day nor 
the next was any news forthcoming as to the king's 
whereabouts. On Saturday Colonel Whalley was 
called before the house to give his version of the 
affair, a proceeding which merely accentuated the 
fact of the king's disappearance without throwing 
any light on the mystery as to whither he had gone. 
All that uncertainty was inevitable; when, at 
nine o'clock on that November night, Charles rode 
away from Hampton Court he had no definite ob- 
jective in view. To two of his faithful friends, Sir 
John Berkeley and John Ashburnham, he had con- 
fided his resolve to make an attempt to escape on 
that Thursday night, but beyond that little had been 
arranged. The first thing to be accomplished was to 
get clear of Hampton Court as speedily as possible, 



The Prison of the Martyr King 97 

and once that was achieved the three rode hard 
through the darkness towards the southwest. 
Where they spent that night is unknown, but some 
time during the following day the trio arrived at 
Titchfield House, a ' ' right statlie ' ' mansion within 
three miles of a river which flows into the South- 
ampton Water. Here, then, the king was in hail of 
the open sea, over which he could sail away to a 
sure refuge in France. 

\ But it was not to be. It is true the king was over- 
heard to ask Ashburnham '' where the ship lay," 
and that that courtier was absent from Titchfield 
House for several hours making enquiries for a 
suitable vessel, but the night closed in again with- 
out any good news of that kind being forthcoming. 
It was at this juncture that one member of the party 
suggested Carisbrooke Castle in the Isle of Wight 
as a suitable haven for the king. It was impossible 
for him to remain long at Titchfield House; his 
presence there could not be hidden for an indefinite 
period, and the mansion was ill-adapted to with- 
stand a siege. 

iNow it happened that Carisbrooke Castle was at 
that time in the charge of Colonel Robert Hammond, 
a nephew of Dr. Henry Hammond, the devoted 
chaplain of the king. Charles and Colonel Ham- 
mond had already met, for the soldier had been in- 
troduced to the king at Hampton Court by his uncle, 
and introduced as one who, notwithstanding the 



98 



Royal Castles of England 



part lie had taken in the civil war, was now * ' a peni- 
tent convert. ' ' Hammond, indeed, had grown some- 
what out of sympathy with the austere methods 
which were in favour with the Eoundheads and 
some members of Parliament, and had been glad to 
exchange the turmoil of London for the more peace- 
ful occupation of the governorship of Carisbrooke 
Castle. All this was known to Ashburnham, and 
it seems to have been his suggestion that Charles 
should cross over to the Isle of Wight and place 
himself under the protection of Hammond. 

Before taking such an irrevocable step, however, 
it was decided that Ashburnham and Sir John 
Berkeley should visit Hammond and hear what he 
had to say. Hammond was startled to learn that 
the king had escaped from Hampton Court, but 
when he was further informed that Charles had so 
good an opinion of him that he was minded to place 
himself under his protection, he became greatly 
embarrassed. Quickly recovering some measure of 
self-possession, however, he answered that if the 
king were pleased to come thither he would receive 
and entertain him as well as he could, but he was, 
after all, no more than an inferior officer, and would 
be obliged to obey his superiors in whatsoever they 
commanded. This was hardly what Ashburnham 
and Berkeley had expected, but, after further de- 
bate, they at length consented to conduct Hammond 
to the king's hiding-place. 



The Prison of the Martyr King 99 

,When the party reached Titchfield House, the 
governor of Carisbrooke Castle was bidden stay 
below while Ashburnham went to the king's cham- 
ber to acquaint him with the result of the mission. 
Charles was quick-witted enough to realize that his 
escape had been made in vain. ^' Jack," he ex- 
claimed to Ashburnham, '' thou hast undone me! " 
And now Ashburnham comprehended the folly of 
his action in revealing the king's hiding-place with- 
out an assurance from Hammond that he would not 
deliver him up again to his enemies. To make what 
amends he could he offered to go down and kill 
Hammond on the spot, but to that proposal Charles 
would not listen for a moment. There was nothing 
to be done now save for him to accompany Ham- 
mond to Carisbrooke Castle and hope for the best. 
This was on Saturday, and the same evening the 
king crossed to the Isle of Wight, and the following 
day passed within the gates of Carisbrooke Castle 
a prisoner once more. 

For Hammond did not feel disposed to support 
the character of a '' penitent convert." Once the 
king had reached the Isle of Wight he immediately 
wrote to the House of Commons, and that body as 
promptly enjoined him to keep his uninvited guest 
securely within the castle. It had been a great 
" temptation " to the governor of Carisbrooke, as 
Cromwell frankly admitted in one of his letters to 
" dear Eobin," but something had decided him 



100 Royal Castles of England 

against going over to the royalist party. Nor did 
he lack reward. A few months later Cromwell 
wrote to '* dear Eobin " again, this time to assure 
him that his " business " was done in the House, 
meaning by '' business " that the House of Com- 
mons had raised his salary from ten to twenty 
pounds a week, besides settling upon him and his 
heirs the comfortable income of five hundred pounds 
a year. Cromwell piously added that he hoped the 
Lord would '^ direct and sustain " him under this 
addition to his '* burden." 

Carisbrooke Castle walls were hoary with age 
when Charles I made their acquaintance as a pris- 
oner. He had known them in happier days. The 
old records of the parish church tell how, as a lad 
of nine, he had visited the castle and dined there 
with his father, James I, and how nine years later 
he had paid a second visit to the historic building. 
Antiquarians tell us that the mound on which the 
castle stands dates from Saxon times, and that it 
marks the site of that great battle of the year 530 
when Cerdic and Cymric '' conquered the island of 
Wight, and slew many men." A Norman castle 
was reared on this spot before Domesday Book was 
compiled, while the present keep dates away back 
to the year 1100. It was here tliat William the Con- 
queror laid his half-brother Odo under arrest, and 
from that time onward it was the scene of many a 
stirring episode. But to-day its ivy-clad ruins, its 




THE KEEP STEPS, CARISBROOKE CASTLE. 



The Prison of the Martyr King lOl 

crumbling ramparts, its grass-paved tilt-yard, and 
its stately gate-house are chiefly of interest because 
they aid the imagination in re-picturing those seven- 
teenth century days when the castle became the last 
prison of England's martyr king. 

As has been noted above, it was on Sunday the 
fourteenth of November, 1647 that Charles Stuart 
took up his abode here as the ostensible guest but 
the veritable prisoner of Colonel Hammond, and 
here he remained until the opening of those negoti- 
ations in the September of the following year which 
ended in starting him on his journey to the scaffold. 
At first his custodian disguised the hand of iron 
with a velvet glove; ten days after his arrival at 
Carisbrooke he wrote : ' ' I am daily more and more 
satisfied with this governor; and find these island- 
ers very good, peaceable, and kind people." But 
it was not long ere he had reason to modify his 
opinion. Acting on orders from the Parliament, 
Hammond gradually curtailed the liberty of his 
guest, and soon the king found his daily exercise 
restricted to a walk round the ramparts or a stroll 
in the tilt-yard. And when another attempt at ef- 
fecting a reconciliation between Charles and his 
Parliament had ended in failure, the governor of 
Carisbrooke abruptly dismissed all the king's 
friends and servants, gave orders that none were 
to repair to him any more, and mounted a strong 
guard at the castle gates. 



102 Royal Castles of England 

NWlien news of these stringent measures spread 
through the island one loyal soul was roused to ac- 
tion. There was residing in the adjacent little 
town of Newport one Captain Burley, a stout- 
Jiearted seaman who had fought valiantly for the 
king through all the years of the civil war. No 
sooner did he hear that his sovereign was being 
harshly treated by the governor of the castle than 
he put himself at the head of a few like-minded 
spirits and marched through the island with a drum 
calling for volunteers in the name of " God, the 
king, and the people." But Colonel Hammond 
swiftly laid Burley by the heels, sent him in haste 
to Winchester for trial, and a few days later he was 
condemned and hanged. 

Deprived of the companionship of the faithful 
Berkeley and Ashburnham and his devoted chap- 
lain. Dr. Henry Hammond, the imprisoned king 
would have found the time hang heavily on his 
hands had he not possessed the resources of the 
educated man. There were few with whom he 
could hold conversation ; of a decrepit old man who 
lit his fire in the morning he said he was ' ' the best 
companion I have had for many months; " but he 
had with him a small library, and when he grew 
weary of reading he sought relief in writing. The 
books he read most were Tasso's '' Jerusalem De- 
livered," Spenser's ^' Faerie Queen," and Hooker's 
" Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity," the latter being a 



The Prison of the Martyr King 103 

work likely to harden him in his opposition to puri- 
tanism and all its deeds. 

^ In the intervals of his reading or his exercise on 
the ramparts or at a game at bowls, he was busy 
with his pen, now framing statements for the Par- 
liament and anon inditing personal letters to his 
friends and wife and children. But there were 
hours when it was difficult to address the latter. It 
was not want of affection, he assured his little 
daughter Elizabeth, that made him write so seldom, 
but want of matter such as he could wish. '' I am 
loth," he said, ^' to write to those I love when I am 
out of humour (as I have been these days by-past), 
lest my letters should trouble those I desire to 
please." To his son and heir, however, who was to 
succeed him as Charles II, he wrote often and in a 
noble strain. He solemnly warned him never to 
aspire to more greatness or prerogative than was 
really for the good of his subjects, adding, " These 
considerations may make you a great prince, as 
your father is now a low one." If God gave him 
success, let him use it humbly and '* far from re- 
venge. ' ' If God restored him to his right, whatever 
he promised let him keep. Wlien he wrote those 
words Charles had met the representatives of the 
Parliament for the last time: " The commissioners 
are gone," he added; '' the com is now in the 
ground; we expect the harvest." 
\ It was not to be long a-reaping. At daybreak two 



104 Boyal Castles of England 

days after he had penned those words the king 
heard a loud knocking at his dressing-room door. 
Enquiry as to who was there elicited the response 
that some gentlemen of the army desired to speak 
with the king, and when those officers were admitted 
they abruptly informed the monarch that they had 
orders to remove him. " From whom? " he asked, 
to be answered, '' From the army." And whither 
was he to be taken? '' To the castle." But what 
castle? '' The castle," came the reply. '* But ' the 
castle ' is no castle," Charles answered. Finally 
his visitors named Hurst Castle as their destination, 
and thither the ill-fated monarch was conveyed in 
the early hours of that December day of 1648. It 
was the first stage of his journey to that scaffold 
on which, two months later, he was to win the title 
of the martyr king. 

Tradition still points out the crumbling walls of 
the rooms which were occupied by Charles during 
the weary months of his last imprisonment, and the 
window through which he twice tried to escape ; but 
legend is silent as to which of these ruined cham- 
bers witnessed the heavenward flight of the soul of 
that monarch's gentle-spirited daughter. For, in 
the summer of 1650, the princess Elizabeth, now in 
her sixteenth year, was ordered by the Parliament 
to be sent to the castle which had been her father's 
prison, no heed being paid to her piteous appeal 
against being confined in a building of such unhappy 



The Prison of the Martyr King 105 

memories. But release was nearer than she knew. 
While taking exercise one day in the old tilting-yard 
she was drenched with a sudden summer rain. A 
chill and a fever followed, and she was found dead 
with her hands clasped as in prayer, her head rest- 
ing on the pages of an open Bible. She was buried 
in the neighbouring church of Newport, where, more 
than two centuries later. Queen Victoria caused to 
be built that graceful marble monument which per- 
petuates the pathos of her death. 



CHAPTER VIII 

** NO WORSE DEED WAS EVER DONE " 

'h 

CORFE CASTLE 

A CENTURY ago it was usual to claim an Anglo- 
Saxon origin for many of the ancient castles of 
England; to-day, in the light of surer knowledge, 
the most enthusiastic topographer hesitates to make 
such a demand for even the most venerable build- 
ing. Of course it is admitted that in many cases 
existing ruins may possibly mark the site on which 

an Anglo-Saxon structure once stood, but that the 

1 ... 

edifice itself can be credited with so antique a his- 
tory is open to grave doubt. For it is now generally 
agreed that Anglo-Saxon castles were usually made 
of wood, and it is obvious that such structures have 
no kinship with the massive stone ruins of Norman 
days. 

Even in those cases where it is highly probable 
that a Norman fortress was reared on the site of an 
Anglo-Saxon citadel there is not one where the pre- 
sumption is so strong as in the example furnished 
by Corfe Castle. The assertion sometimes made that 
this building was reared by King Edgar in the tenth 
century cannot now be accepted, but there is no 
denying the fact that its site, or the near vicinity of 
its site, was the scene of a royal tragedy more than 

106 



" No Worse Deed Was Ever Done " 107 

nine centuries ago. The record may be read in the 
terse sentences of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 
where, under the date 978, some old historian set 
down these words : 

" This year was King Edward slain, at eventide, 
at Corfe-gate, on the fifteenth day before the calends 
of April. And he was buried at AVareham without 
any royal honour. No worse deed than this was 
ever done by the English nation since they first 
sought the land of Britain. Men murdered him, but 
God has glorified him. He was in life an earthly 
king, he is now after death a heavenly saint. Him 
would not his earthly relatives avenge, but his 
heavenly father has avenged him amply. The 
earthly homicides would wipe out his memory from 
the earth, but the avenger above him spread his 
memory abroad in heaven and earth. Those, who 
would not before bow to his living body, now bow 
on their knees to his dead bones. Now we may con- 
clude, that the wisdom of men, and their medita- 
tions, and their counsels, are as nought against the 
appointment of God. In this year succeeded Ethel- 
red, his brother, to the government." 

So stands the deposition of that unknown chron- 
icler whose hand has lain idle in the grave for more 
than nine long centuries. When he wrote his an- 
nals some of those implicated in that " worse deed " 
were probably still alive ; hence the reticence of his 
narrative, the absence of any ascription of blame, 



108 Boyal Castles of England 

his silence as to the names of those " earthly rela- 
tives ' ' who so sadly failed in their duty to the mur- 
dered king. But there came a day when the annal- 
ists of English history felt at liberty to set down all 
the truth, and it is from later records that we learn 
the full details of the story of ambition which led 
to the murder of Edward the Martyr on that hill- 
side where now stand the ruins of Corfe Castle. 

Edgar, king of the English, notwithstanding his 
many good qualities, was a '' slave to lust." Two of 
his liaisons appear to have been anticipations of the 
modern trial-marriage type, for in each case the 
" handfast " union lasted for but a year. It is 
plain that he was a connoisseur of feminine beauty, 
for his first wife, the mother of Edward, was known 
as the " White Duck," and legend has much to say 
about the romance and tragedy connected with his 
choice of a second spouse. Report had reached him 
of the matchless loveliness of Elfrida, the daughter 
of Ordgar, earl of Cornwall, and he commissioned 
his favourite Ethelwold to visit the maiden that he 
might learn the truth about her charms. That was 
an unfortunate errand for Ethelwold, for no sooner 
had he gazed upon the fair Elfrida than he was 
' ' near mad in love ' ' with her himself. His passion 
decided him to prove faithless to his king; instead 
of sustaining the role of an ambassador he assumed 
that of the lover, so prevailing with the maiden and 
her father that ere he left Ordgar 's house he was 



*' No Worse Deed Was Ever Done " 109 

promised Elfrida's hand in marriage, provided lie 
could procure the consent of the king. The tenor 
of his report to Edgar may be imagined; Elfrida, 
he said, was no such beauty as had been reported; 
she might grace the house of a subject, but was no 
worthy match for a king. The ruse succeeded ad- 
mirably, and when Ethelwold perceived the king's 
mind to be " somewhat alienated from love " he 
began ^' little by little to entreat him to grant him 
his goodwill that he might marry her himself." 

So Elfrida became the wife of Ethelwold. But as 
the wife of the king's favourite she was *' more 
frequently in the eyes of all men," and the '' fame 
of her comeliness daily more and more increased." 
Now all this could not be hidden from the king. 
Once more, then, his curiosity was aroused, but in- 
stead of trusting to second-hand reports he deter- 
mined to investigate for himself. An excuse was 
easily concocted; a day's hunting on a manor of 
Ethelwold 's would give him an opportunity to form 
his own opinion as to the beauty of his favourite's 
wife. 

Edgar does not seem to have disguised his inten- 
tion from his favourite ; at any rate Ethelwold be- 
came acquainted with the king's resolve and at once 
realized his danger. In his extremity he appealed 
to Elfrida herself. Telling her the truth about his 
visit to her home, he implored her to so attire her- 
self as to conceal her beauty from the king. But 



110 Royal Castles of England 

Etlielwold pleaded in vain; angered that she had 
been robbed of a crown, Elfrida *' decked and 
picked herself in the heartiest manner, like a pea- 
cock." And Edgar succnmbed so completely to her 
charms that shortly after he slew Ethelwold with 
his own hands and then took his widow for his wife. 
But Elfrida 's ambition was not satiated. When 
Edgar died she would fain have been regent of the 
kingdom until her seven-year-old son Ethelred 
should be old enough to reign, and she stoutly op- 
posed that party in the state which insisted that her 
step-son Edward should be acknowledged king of 
the land. For a time she was thwarted in her ambi- 
tion, Edward, a lad of twelve, being duly elected to 
the throne. There came a day, however, some three 
years later, when the young Edward, hunting in the 
vicinity of Corfe, had a sudden inspiration to pay 
a visit to his step-mother, who was living there with 
her son Ethelred. News of his approach was im- 
parted to Elfrida, who, as one legend tells, came to 
meet him on her threshold. And as he sat on horse- 
back to drink the cup of welcome preferred in El- 
frida 's name, one of her servants, at her bidding, 
thrust a knife into his body. Such is the stoiy of 
a step-mother's barbarity which lies behind that 
record in the old chronicle of the earliest tragedy 
enacted on the site of Corfe Castle, the memory of 
which is preserved to this day by that St. Edward's 
Bridge which spans the moat of the fortress. 



" No Worse Deed Was Ever Done '* 111 

With such an evil deed staining the first pages of 
its history, there is a sombre appropriateness in the 
fact that the annals of Corfe Castle enshrine the 
memory of many tragedies. Of course it must be 
remembered that the present ruins do not date back 
to the murder of the youthful Edward; it is true 
there is a piece of herring-bone. masonry in one of 
the walls for which some authorities claim an 
Anglo-Saxon ancestry; but the structure as it 
stands to-day cannot be accorded a longer antiquity 
than some twenty years subsequent to the Norman 
Conquest. That it was a secure stronghold by 1106 
is obvious from the fact that in that year it was 
selected by Henry I as the prison of his elder 
brother Eobert, whom he had defeated in battle. 

But it was during the reign of King John that 
Corfe Castle gathered its most prolific harvest of 
gloomy associations. Arthur, the son of John's 
elder brother, was the rightful heir to the English 
throne, a fact which made the lad an important 
factor in the schemes of those who hated his usurp- 
ing uncle. It was as a pawn in this game that 
Prince Arthur was prompted to take arms against 
John, the issue of which was that he, and his sister 
Eleanor, and some two hundred knights and nobles 
of Anjou and Poictiers, were taken prisoners by 
the English king. Arthur was shortly afterwards 
murdered, but Eleanor and the knights and nobles 
were sent as captives to England, the former being 



112 Royal Castles of England 

at once confined in Corfe Castle. For a period of 
her captivity in the Dorsetshire citadel Eleanor, 
** the Beauty of Brittany " as she was called in 
tribute to her loveliness, had for companions two 
of the daughters of the King of Scotland, who were 
held there as hostages for their father's good be- 
haviour. Three princesses as prisoners at one time 
help to lighten a little the dark story of other im- 
prisonments within these walls. 

No doubt *' the Beauty of Brittany " often won- 
dered what fate had befallen the two hundred 
knights and nobles who had been taken captive at 
the same time as herself. In due course she was to 
learn that some two dozen of them were actually 
sharing her own prison. For history tells how John 
ordered twenty-four of his captives to be sent to 
Corfe Castle, and that when they were dispatched 
thither he sent a letter to the keeper of the fortress 
commanding him to obey whatever instructions he 
might be given by word of mouth by the messengers 
who accompanied the prisoners. Even John, brutal 
as he was, shrank from writing his commands. For 
the instructions he had given to his messengers were 
to the effect that twenty-two of the unfortunate 
knights were to be immured in the strongest dun- 
geon of the castle and starved to death. And legend 
affirms that the inhuman order was ruthlessly 
obeyed. 

There was nothing squeamish about King John; 



" No Worse Deed Was Ever Done " 113 

a less scrupulous murderer might have had some 
qualms about frequenting a building haunted by the 
ghosts of twenty-two of his victims ; but such trifles 
had no terror for the son of Henry II. That is the 
only conclusion possible from the fact that Corfe 
Castle was one of his favourite residences, and was 
visited by him many times during the last dozen 
years of his life. He spent a large sum of money 
on works about the castle, and so firm a belief had 
he in its strength that he ordered the royal regalia 
to be kept within its walls. John's queen-consort, 
the fair Isabella of Angouleme, was also a frequent 
visitor to Corfe Castle, whither, as old records tes- 
tify, the good citizens of Winchester sent her many 
presents. 

For many generations, until, indeed, the time of 
Queen Elizabeth, Corfe Castle remained among the 
royal possessions of England, but in the fourteenth 
year of her reign Elizabeth sold the building and its 
lands to one of her favourites. In 1635 it became 
the property of Sir John Bankes, Lord Chief Justice 
of England, whose descendants still count it among 
their possessions. 

Some five and a half centuries of history were 
vouchsafed the castle ere its career as a strong for- 
tress came to an end. But the climax of its for- 
tunes will preserve its fame in English history as 
long as its annals are read. At the breaking out of 
the civil war of the seventeenth century the posses- 



114 Royal Castles of England 

sion of this stronghold became a matter of great 
moment, for, in those days, when artillery was in 
its infancy, its sturdy walls and secure position 
made it practically impregnable. Standing on an 
isolated eminence in a gap of lofty hills, the ap- 
proach on three sides is exceedingly precipitous, 
while on the fourth there is the formidable defence 
of a deep foss. An ancient ground-plan of the castle 
shows that in the sixteenth century there were no 
fewer than four wards which an enemy would have 
to capture before he could reach the massive keep, 
while the whole area was surrounded by solid walls 
strengthened by numerous towers of defence. 

Such a desirable fortress was naturally envied 
by the parliamentary forces, and many attempts 
were made for its capture. The owner, Sir John 
Bankes, thought it his duty to accompany Charles I 
when he retired from his capital; his wife. Lady 
Bankes, deemed it wisest in those unsettled times 
to repair to Corfe Castle with her children. For 
some months nothing untoward happened, but on 
the first of May, 1643, a report reached her to the 
effect that an attempt was to be made to seize the 
castle for the Parliament. It seems that by ancient 
custom the lord of Corfe Castle gave permission 
for the coursing of a stag on May-day, on which 
occasion the gentlemen of the Isle of Purbeck fol- 
lowed the hunt in a kind of gala festival. This was 
the opportunity of the parliamentarians; under 



*^ No Worse Deed Was Ever Done " 115 

cover of taking part in that ceremony it would be 
easy, they imagined, to secure the castle. But Lady 
Bankes was too quick for them; as soon as she 
heard of their design she recalled all her servants 
and gave orders for the closing of the castle-gates 
and denial of admission to all comers. 

Having failed in that ruse, they tried another. A 
few days later a band of forty sailors appeared and 
requested the delivery of four small cannon which 
formed part of the armament of the castle ; ' ' but, 
instead of delivering them, though at that time 
there were but five men in the castle, yet these five, 
assisted by the maid-servants at their Lady's com- 
mand, mount these pieces on their carriages again, 
and loading one of them they gave fire, which small 
thunder so affrighted the seamen that they all 
quitted the place and ran away." 

Realizing that matters had now taken a serious 
turn. Lady Bankes exerted herself to prepare the 
castle for the inevitable siege. By beat of drum she 
summoned all her loyal tenants, and the neighbour- 
hood was scoured for arms. For a time her efforts 
were checkmated by the supporters of the Parlia- 
ment, a large supply of gunpowder being intercepted 
on its way to the castle, while in the nearest town 
of Wareham orders were issued that no beer, or 
beef, or provisions of any kind were to be sold to 
Lady Bankes or for her use. Soon, too, some of the 
royal forces were found to be not far distant, and 



116 Royal Castles of England 

an urgent message to the commander resulted in 
Captain Lawrence and a small company of soldiers 
being sent to garrison the castle. 

All these preparations were hardly completed ere 
an assault was made by a rebel force of some three 
hundred men, who, however, contented themselves 
with battering at the fortress from the surrounding 
hills and setting fire to a few houses in the town. 
One misty morning in June a more serious enemy 
gathered around the walls of Corfe, a formidable 
force of more than five hundred men led by a Sir 
Walter Earle. '* They brought with them to the 
siege," reported a contemporary account, '' a demi- 
cannon, a.culvern, and two sacres; with these, and 
their small shot, they played on the castle on all 
quarters of it, with good observation of advantages, 
making their battery strongest where they thought 
the castle weakest; and to bind the soldiers by tie 
of conscience to an eager prosecution of the siege, 
they administer them an oath, that if they found 
the defendants hesitate not to yield, they would 
maintain the siege to victory, and then deny all 
quarter unto all, killing without mercy men, women, 
and children." 

To protect them in making a closer approach to 
the walls, the besiegers constructed a Sow and a 
Boar, two of those old-fashioned military engines 
which were designed to give shelter to soldiers in 
using a battering-ram, but the former of these 



" No Worse Deed Was Ever Done " 117 

proved disastrous to most of the men who moved 
forward with it, for the marksmen within the castle 
made such good practice on the exposed legs of the 
besiegers that nine of the eleven ran away ' ' as well 
as their battered and broken legs would give them 
leave." Having experienced such ill-fortune with 
the Sow, the Boar was not brought into action. It 
was safer to pound at the castle from the church 
tower, where one of the batteries was mounted ; and 
the lead of the roof of that sacred building was torn 
off to provide cannon-ball. Finally, the men having 
been inspired with strong waters — or, as the drink 
is described in an old account of the expenses of the 
siege, ^' a firkin of hot water for the soldiers when 
they scaled the castle ' ' — one last desperate effort 
was made to bring Lady Bankes to bay. The attack 
was made in two places at once, and while Captain 
Lawrence soon gave a good account of the assailants 
who attempted to break into the middle ward, Lady 
Bankes, with her daughters and women and five 
soldiers, by casting down stones and hot embers, had 
little difficulty in repelling the attack on the upper 
ward. At this juncture n«ws arrived that some 
royalist forces were advancing, whereupon the 
leader of the besiegers made '* more haste to con- 
vey himself to London than generals use to do who 
have the care of others." The siege had lasted six 
weeks and had ended in a signal triumph for Lady 
Bankes. It is true that Corfe Castle did finally, by 



118 Royal Castles of England 

treachery, fall into the hands of the Parliament, by 
whose orders it was soon after demolished, but its 
tottering walls are an eloquent monument to one of 
the bravest of English Amazons. 



CHAPTER IX 

ROYAL WINDSOR 
WINDSOR CASTLE 

On all counts Windsor Castle has an undeniable 
right to the epithet '^ Royal." No other word so 
fitly characterizes that majestic pile of buildings 
on the western bank of the ^' silver- streaming 
Thames ; " it is royal in its situation ; its memories 
are of kings and queens. From the days of William 
the Conqueror to the present occupant of the Eng- 
lish throne, through changes of dynasty during nigh 
nine hundred years, it has been linked with the joys 
and sorrows, the triumphs and defeats of the royal 
house of Britain. Here have been born scions of 
that house; here they have plighted their troth in 
marriage; here they have lain down to die; here 
not a few have been committed to their eternal rest. 
Legend persists in carrying the story back to the 
mythical days of Arthur of the Round Table ; surer 
history makes it the scene of the court of Edward 
the Confessor; irrefutable fact reveals the figure 
of the Norman Conqueror as the first tangible 
founder of this regal home. 

For a brief season this picturesque nook of Berk- 

119 



120 Royal Castles of England 

sliire was counted among the possessions of West- 
minster Abbey, it having been presented to that 
house by Edward the Confessor for the '' use of 
those that serve the Lord. ' ' But its pleasant situa- 
tion took the fancy of Norman "William; it was, he 
saw, a place '' commodious by the nearness of the 
river, the forest fit for hunting, and many other par- 
ticulars therein convenient for kings; " wherefore, 
as it was also " a place fit for the king's entertain- 
ment," he persuaded the abbot of Westminster to 
exchange that desirable domain for other and larger 
lands elsewhere. 

Camden, who tells the story, adds with truth that 
** scarce any Eoyal Seat can certainly have a more 
pleasant situation. For," he continues, " from an 
high hill rising with a gentle ascent, it hath an ad- 
mirable prospect round about. Its front overlooks 
a long and wide valley, chequered with corn-fields 
and green meadows, clothed on each side with 
groves, and watered with the calm and gentle 
Thames. Behind it arise hills everywhere, neither 
craggy, nor over-high, adorned with woods, and, as 
it were, consecrated by nature herself to hunting. 
The pleasantness of it hath drawn many of our 
Princes hither, as to a retiring place." 

Not content with that tribute in prose, the author 
of " Britannia " amplified his praise by verse, com- 
pelling his muse, as was natural to an Elizabethan, 
to reach its climax in a pean to the Virgin Queen. 





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Royal Windsor 121 

" Now on the bank fam'd Windsor's towers appear, 
Mount their high tops, and pierce the utmost air. 
At this (but first does Eton's walls salute, 
Where stern Orbilius governs absolute, 
And in proud state his birchen sceptre shakes) 
Thames lifts its azure head, and thus he speaks: 
Windsor, no more thy ancient glories tell, 
No more relate the wonders of thy hill; 
Thy forts, thy fens, thy Chapel's stately pile: 
Thy spires, thy smiling fields, thy happy springs; 
Thy cradles, marriage-beds, or tombs of Kings. 
Forget the knights thy noble stalls adorn, 
The Garter too by them in honour worn: 
Though that great Order sound the first in fame, 
And swells so high with mighty George's name. 
That Burgundy contemns her golden Fleece, 
And the light French their scallop'd chains despise. 
Rhodes, Alcala and Elbe with shame disown 
The painted Crosses on their mantles shown. 
These glories now are all eclipsed by one, 
One honour vies with all thy old renown. 
When on thy courts, and on my bank we see 
Elizabeth (then Thames with bended knee 
Stoops low to pay obeisance to her name; 
And thus goes on, pleas'd with his mighty theme.) 
Elizabeth, whom we^with wonder stile 
The Queen, the Saint, the Goddess of our isle." 



To set forth the full details of what an Eliza- 
bethan topographer called " the beginnings and in- 
creases of this stately College and Castle Royal " 
would need a ponderous volume, for even the build- 
ing as it stands to-day represents the additions and 
transformations of many monarchs from Edward 
III to Edward VII. It must be remembered, too, 
that such palace as the Saxon kings had here was 



122 Royal Castles of England 

situated at Old Windsor, by the side of ^' the 
winding shore " of the Thames; it was due to 
William the Conqueror that the present site of the 
castle was selected at what is called New Windsor, 
while it was not until 1110 that, as Holinshed tells 
us, '^ Henry I removed his court from Old to New 
Windsor, which has ever since continued to be one 
of the chief royal palaces." Nothing of the castle 
of Henry I has survived; the oldest portions may 
include some of the work carried out in the reign of 
Henry II, but the sovereign of olden days who is 
most thoroughly represented in the present struc- 
ture is Edward III. 

For it is the great warrior king of the fourteenth 
century who is usually regarded as the chief builder 
of England's royal castle. Born here in 1312, and 
known consequently as Edward of Windsor, the 
third of the Edwards seems to have cherished a life- 
long affection for his birthplace, a passion which 
explains his resolve to rear a building worthy of his 
royal race. In the uncertain chronology of the 
castle it is difficult to specify actual dates, but there 
seems good reason to believe that it was about the 
year 1348 that a beginning was made with the re- 
construction of the building, and that a start was 
made with the Round Tower, which, according to 
one theory, Edward needed as a meeting-place for 
his Knights of the Garter. Although the height of 
that tower has been increased in more modern 



Royal Windsor 123 

times, mucli of its lower portion dates back to tlie 
fourteenth century, while some of the woodwork of 
the interior is of the Edwardian age. To this 
" lofty tower " indeed Otway's lines may still be 
applied : 

" Beauteous in strength, the work of long-past years, 
Old as his noble stem, who there bears sway, 
And, like his loyalty, without decay. 
This goodly ancient frame looks as it stood 
The mother pile, and all the rest her brood. 
So careful watch she seems to keep, 
While underneath her wings the mighty sleep." 

Among the old records of the fourteenth century 
may yet be read some curious details of the building 
carried on at Windsor by the command of Edward 
III. The power of the state was invoked to secure 
a plentiful supply of workmen, for writs were issued 
to the sheriffs of various counties bidding them, 
under a penalty of a hundred pounds, to provide a 
certain number of labourers, and those artisans had 
to give security that they would not leave Windsor 
without the consent of the clerk of the works, who 
was none other than the famous William of Wyke- 
ham. Notwithstanding that binding agreement, 
some of the workmen did steal away, tempted by 
higher wages than those paid by the king, a deser- 
tion which led to the issuing of writs for their ar- 
rest and the punishment of any who had employed 
them. At one period during the re-building the 



124 Royal Castles of England 

supply of labourers was seriously diminished by an 
outbreak of tlie plague, but at that juncture Edward 
issued new orders to his sheriffs commanding them 
to furnish him with substitutes or pay a penalty of 
two hundred pounds. The number of workmen em- 
ployed was at one time as high as three hundred 
and sixty, yet notwithstanding that little army the 
structure remained unfinished at the death of Ed- 
ward. 

This was all to the good of one Geoffrey Chaucer, 
who, in 1389, was appointed by Eichard II as clerk 
of the works at the unfinished castle. He did not 
hold the post for long; and in truth he was better 
employed in writing poetry than in supervising the 
labours of stone-masons and carpenters. Yet it 
adds a keen interest to these grey walls to recall 
that the process of their building was watched by 
the author of the ' ' Canterbury Tales. ' ' 

Many of the succeeding sovereigns of England 
added their quota to the adornment of this royal 
castle. To Edward IV is due the noble St. George's 
Chapel ; Henry VII began that tomb-house which is 
now the resting-place of so many of his descendants ; 
the massive gateway, which is the chief entrance to 
the lower ward, was the work of Henry VIII; the 
spacious North Terrace from whence there is so 
ravishing a view of Eton and the winding Thames 
and the lovely landscape beyond was built by the 
command of Queen Elizabeth; while in their turn. 



Royal Windsor 125 

Charles II, Queen Anne, George IV, Queen Victoria, 
and Edward VII contributed not a little to the 
aspect of the castle buildings as they stand to-day. 
Apart from the Round Tower, which dominates 
the castle from whatever point of view it is sur- 
veyed, the most glorious of all the buildings is that 
St. George's Chapel, which is peculiarly the holy of 
holies of the Knights of the '' most noble Order of 
the Garter. ' ' The poet Otway included that famous 
shrine in his itinerary of the castle and admitted 
that it was '' too noble to be well described or 
praised." But the lines in which he gave voice to 
his sensations as he gazed into the chaped might 
have been written in recent days. 

" Before the door, fix'd in an awe profound, 
I stood, and gaz'd with pleasing wonder round, 
When one approach'd who bore much sober grace, 
Order and ceremony in his face; 
A threatening rod did his dread right hand poise, 
A badge of rule and terror o'er the boys: 
His left a massy bunch of keys did sway, 
Ready to open all to all that pay. 
This courteous 'squire, observing how amaz'd 
My eyes betray'd me as they wildly gaz'd. 
Thus gently spoke : ' These banners rais'd on high 
Betoken noble vows of chivalry; 
Which here their heroes with Religion make, 
When they the ensigns of this order take.' 
Then in due method made me miderstand 
What honour fam'd St. George has done our land; 
What toils he vanquish'd, with what monsters strove; 
Whose champions since for virtue, truth, and love, 
Hang here their trophies, while their generous arms 
Keep wrong supprest, and innocence from harms." 



126 Royal Castles of England 

Althongli tradition affirms that the earliest use of 
the Round Tower was as a meeting-place for the 
Knights of the Garter, it was not long ere that 
massive building became the chief prison of the 
castle. One of its first and most notable captives 
was James I of Scotland, who was detained prisoner 
in England for full nineteen years. During tha^ 
period he made the acquaintance of many a fortress, 
being removed to Windsor in 1417 and remaining 
there until his marriage and release in 1424. The 
old romances tell that it was from this Round 
Tower he caught his first glimpse of the lovely Jane 
Beaufort, daughter of the Duke of Somerset, a 
vision which enkindled love and inspired him to 
sing '' the Kingis Quair " in praise of his enslave- 
ment to that fair maiden. Perhaps this is to read 
literalism into a flight of fancy, and yet the most 
severe critics have come to the conclusion that the 
tender lines in which James described how he was 
overcome with '' pleasance and delyte " by the 
vision of the graceful maiden walking in the garden 
under his prison window represent the poet's own 
experience. There is truth in the story, however, as 
well as romance, for James did win the Lady Jane 
for his bride, and was so faithful to his love that it 
is recorded of him that almost alone of Scottish 
kings he had no mistress and no bastards. 

A more sombre story of imprisonment and fiend- 
ish cruelty is associated by some annalists with the 



Royal Windsor 127 

evil name of King John. It tells how the wife of 
William de Braose and her children were immured 
here with a sheaf of wheat and a piece of raw bacon 
as their sole food, and that when their cell was 
opened eleven days later they were all dead. That 
was in the days before Edward Ill's re-building, 
for it was the older Windsor Castle in which John 
held his court and from whence he went to and fro 
to that meeting of his barons at Runnimede where 
he was forced to adhibit his name to Magna 
Charta. 

More picturesque is the chronicle of the captivity 
of the poetic Earl of Surrey, who made the ac- 
quaintance of the Round Tower in 1537 because he 
had, in the park of Hampton Court, struck a cour- 
tier who had charged him with being in sympathy 
with some of the rebels of the king. To be a pris- 
oner at Windsor was a decided novelty for Surrey, 
remembering that, by the special desire of Henry 
VIII, he had spent several years of his boyhood 
there as the companion of that monarch's natural 
son, the Duke of Riclunond. Doubtless Surrey's 
five months ' imprisonment was not a serious aif air ; 
at any rate he seems to have had ample opportunity 
to cultivate the poetic muse during his confinement. 
If his love-sonnets in praise of the Lady Geraldine 
were not written in the Round Tower, as some au- 
thorities assure us, it is beyond question that it was 
within its walls he composed his quaint '' Prisoner 



128 Royal Castles of England 

in Windsor, He Recounteth His Pleasure there 
Passed.'* 

Naturally the earl's thoughts reverted to those 
happier days when he was the playmate of a king's 
son, who, but a year past, had been laid in his un- 
timely grave. 

" place of bliss! renewer of my woes! 
Give me account, where is my noble fere? 
Whom in thy walls thou didst each night enclose; 
To other lief: but unto me most dear. 
Echo, alas! that doth my sorrow rue. 
Returns thereto a hollow sound of plaint. 
Thus I alone, where all my freedom grew, 
In prison pine, with bondage and restraint." 

Surrey's picturesque lines must always have a 
prominent place in the anthology of Windsor Castle, 
for the memories they enshrine of his companion- 
ship with Henry's son are full of the light and 
colour of the first half of the sixteenth century. It 
is a sunny landscape of youth in love and at play 
painted against the background of the ancient walls 
or set amid the green spaces of its gardens. 

" The large green courts, where we were wont to hove, 
With eyes upcast unto the maiden's tower, 
And easy sighs, such as folk draw in love. 
The stately seats, the ladies bright of hue, 
The dances short, long tales of great delight; 
With words and looks that tigers could but rue, 
When each of us did plead the other's right. 
The palm play, where desported for the game, 
With dazed eyes oft we, by gleams of love. 
Have miss'd the ball, and got sight of our dame, 
To bait her eyes, which kept the leads above. 



Royal Windsor 129 

The gravell'd ground, with sleeves tied on the helm, 
On foaming horse with swords and friendly hearts; 
With cheer as though one should another whelm, 
Where we have fought, and chased oft with darts. 
With silver drops the meads yet spread for ruth; 
In active games of nimbleness and strength, 
Where we did strain, trained with swarms of youth. 
Our tender limbs that yet shot up in length. 
The secret groves, which oft we made resound 
Of pleasant plaint, and of our ladies' praise; 
Recording soft what grace each one had found, 
What hopes of speed, what dread of long delays. 
The wild forest, the clothed holts with green; 
With reins avail'd, and swift ybreathed horse, 
With cry of hounds, and merry blasts between, 
Where we did chase the fearful hart of force. 
The void walls eke that harbour 'd us each night: 
Wherewith, alas! revive within my breast 
The sweet accord, such sleeps as yet delight; 
The pleasant dreams, the quiet bed of rest; 
The secret thoughts, imparted with such trust; 
The wanton talk, the divers change of play; 
The friendships sworn, each promise kept so just, 
Wherewith we passed the winter nights away." 



Twelve years later the youthful legitimate son of 
Henry VIII, now King Edward VI, was to be held 
almost as a prisoner within his own castle walls. 
Late on an October night the protector Somerset, 
who had Edward in his charge, took alarm at the 
threatening attitude of his enemies, and resolved to 
remove with his royal ward from Hampton Court 
to the more secure haven of the castle at Windsor. 
The young king was in bed afflicted with a bad cough 
and cold, but despite that fact Somerset forced him 



130 



Royal Castles of England 



to arise and accompany him on a night ride to the 
castle by the Thames. But the power of Somerset 
was soon broken, and in welcoming his deliverance 
the ailing young monarch uttered the melancholy 
complaint : ' ' Methinks I am in prison : here be no 
galleries nor gardens to walk in." 

Far more pathetic are the Windsor memories of 
that other king, Charles I, whose beheaded corpse 
lies in the vaults beneath St. George's Chapel. It 
was in July, 1647, the ill-fated monarch paid his pe- 
nultimate visit to the royal castle of his ancestors. 
He was a prisoner of the Parliament, a fact which 
encouraged the governor of the castle in his high- 
handed treatment. For the loyal inhabitants of 
Windsor had signalized their king's arrival in their 
midst by the ringing of bells and the making of bon- 
fires, much to the wrath of the governor of the 
castle, who threatened them with condign punish- 
ment. Charles was still hopeful of better days, nor 
was his spirit crushed. " Mr. Governor," he said, 
on learning what that official had threatened, " I 
hear of such and such matters you intend to do, but 
be well advised of it, for I go not so far off, neither 
intend I to stay so long hence, but that I may return 
soon enough to make you repent of it if for show- 
ing their loves to me you cause one hair of their 
heads to perish." A few days later Charles was 
taken to Hampton Court, whence, as recorded in a 
previous chapter, he made that ill-planned attempt 



Royal Windsor 131 

to escape from the power of the Parliament and 
army. 

Yet once more, in the December of 1648, was the 
doomed king to dwell for a brief space within the 
walls of Windsor Castle, this time as a prisoner 
more closely guarded and but a little removed from 
the scaffold which was to end all. Surely it was a 
refinement of cruelty on the part of the army lead- 
ers which prompted them to select such a place for 
their captive's safe-keeping. Here, however, in the 
palace where he had known far happier days, 
Charles Stuart was fated to pass his '' sorrowful 
and last Christmas," and it was from Windsor that, 
on a January day, he was escorted to his mock-trial 
and the headsman's block. 

These happenings, however, are the shadow of the 
picture; to most minds it will be pleasanter to dwell 
upon those traditions of Windsor which are bright- 
ened by the light and colour of the days of chivalry. 
Many a glorious festival of knightly tournament 
and regal revelry has left its impress on the stately 
annals of the castle; here, too, have passed the joy- 
ous ceremonies of royal betrothals and weddings, or 
the splendid days of stately hospitality. Thus in 
the glowing pages of the chronicler Hall may be 
read how Henry VIII royally entertained at his 
castle of Windsor the Emperor Charles V in the 
summer of 1522. In the daytime the two monarchs 
hunted; when night fell there were plays and 



132 Royal Castles of England 

masques and banquets. After one play, Hall re- 
cords, there was '^ a sumptuous Masque of twelve 
men and twelve women, the men had on garments of 
cloth of gold and silver loose laid on crimson satin, 
knit with points of gold, bonnets, hoods, buskins, 
all of gold. The ladies were in the same suit which 
was very rich to behold, and when they had danced, 
then came in a costly banquet and a basket of spices, 
and so departed to their lodging. ' ' 

Copious as are the annals of such gorgeous do- 
ings, the records of the early domestic history of 
royal Windsor are exceedingly scanty. One pleas- 
ant glimpse, however, of a queen spending a quiet 
and happy month here away from the cares and 
shows of state is afforded by the quaint entries day 
by day of the privy purse expenses of Elizabeth of 
York, the fair and gentle and kindly-hearted consort 
of Henry VII. It was on a mid- June day of 1502 
that the queen journeyed from Richmond to Wind- 
sor, and there she remained until the nineteenth of 
the following month. Her progress was marked by 
alms-giving, for one item in her expenses shows how 
a certain sum was handed to her footman to be 
'' given in alms by the commandment of the queen." 
Hardly had she reached the castle than the ministers 
of the king's chapel were presented with twenty 
shillings ' ' to drink at a tavern with a buck, ' ' a feast 
held, no doubt, in honour of the queen's return. On 
many days during that summer visit, the last Eliz- 



Royal Windsor 133 

abeth was to pay to that royal home, she was the 
recipient of various presents, now an offering of 
cherries from the Mayor of London, anon a gift of 
cakes and apples, another day a popinjay from some 
donor unnamed, and frequently a buck or two for 
the royal table. Once the queen made a little ex- 
cursion to a hermit's cell near Windsor, giving the 
hermit a shilling in alms and fourpence to '' a poor 
man that guided the queen's grace thither." An- 
other entry tells how four shillings and fourpence 
were paid to certain labourers " to make a harbour 
in the little park of Windsor for a banquet for the 
queen," a record which suggests a charming picture 
of a happy al fresco festival. Ere another year 
went by the beautiful Elizabeth had been laid to her 
rest in the abbey of Westminster. 

During the Commonwealth the history of royal 
Windsor is mainly that of a prison. Cromwell was 
satisfied with Hampton Court and Whitehall as his 
chief residences; perhaps Windsor was too remin- 
iscent of his royal victim; but the Round Tower 
and other strong places in the castle by the Thames 
were much used for the confinement of troublesome 
royalists. It was during these days of its suspended 
glory that Evelyn paid his first visit to the castle. 
He admired the stonework of St. George's Chapel, 
but of the principal building all he could record in 
his diary was that the rooms were " melancholy 
and of antient magnificance." Many of the treas- 



134 Royal Castles of England 

ures of the castle had been ruthlessly despoiled by 
the grim Puritans ; they ransacked the wardrobe of 
tapestries and carpets, stripped the Garter room of 
its banners and hangings and pictures, and carried 
off countless other treasures. Nor did they stop 
there; they rifled even the tombs of the dead, lay- 
ing unholy hands upon the adornments of that maso- 
leum which Wolsey had prepared for his own sepul- 
ture. 

With the restoration of Charles II there opened 
a happier chapter in the annals of royal Windsor, 
even though it was not until nearly ten years later 
that the '^ Merry Monarch " set himself seriously 
to the task of repairing the havoc wrought by the 
Cromwellians. To this transition period belongs 
the lively record which Pepys made of the visit he 
and his wife paid in the late winter of 1666. 

He rose early on that February day and travelled 
to Windsor by coach. Putting up at the Garter inn, 
he ' ' sent for Dr. Childe, who came to us and carried 
us to St. George's Chapel, and there placed us 
among the Knights' stalls. And pretty the obser- 
vation," so he wrote in his diary, *' that no man, 
but a woman, may sit in a Knight's place, where any 
brass plates are set; and hither come cushions to 
us, and a young singing-boy to bring us a copy of 
the anthem to be sung. And here, for our sakes, had 
this anthem and the great service sung extraordi- 
nary, only to entertain us. . . . Was shown where 



I 



Royal Windsor 135 

the late King is buried, and King Henry the Eighth, 
and my Lady Seymour. This being done, to the 
King's house, and to observe the neatness and con- 
trivance of the house and gates : it is the most ro- 
mantic castle that is in the world. But, Lord! the 
prospect that is in the balcony in the Queen's lodg- 
ings, and the terrace and walk, are strange things 
to consider, being the best in the world, sure." 
Pepys was so pleased with his visit that he did not 
complain at having to give ' ' a great deal of money 
to this and that man and woman; " he found, like 
Otway and the modern visitor, that there were 
plenty of attendants " ready to open all to all that 
pay." 

Some two years later, when Charles II had begun 
to realize, like William the Conqueror, that Wind- 
sor was a " fit place for the king's entertainment," 
and that it was, above all, an ideal summer resi- 
dence, an earnest beginning was made on the work 
of repairs. The place was, as Evelyn noted, ^' ex- 
ceedingly ragged and ruinous," and the renovation 
proved a protracted task. Indeed the work was not 
completed until 1683, when Charles was drawing 
near the end of his reign. Architectural purists 
have criticized the restoration carried out by the 
second Charles, but Evelyn was delighted with 
everything he saw. He was moved to enthusiasm 
by the '' incomparable fresco painting " in St. 
George's Hall, and had no fault to find with thQ 



136 Royal Castles of England 

other improvements. '* There was now," he wrote, 
' ' the terrace brought almost round the old Castle ; 
the grass made clean, even, and curiously turfed; 
the avenues to the new park, and other walks, 
planted with elms and limes, and a pretty canal, and 
receptacle for fowls; nor less observable and fa- 
mous is the throwing so huge a quantity of excellent 
water to the enormous height of the Castle, for the 
use of the whole house." King Charles often trav- 
elled to Windsor by barge, a delightful and pictur- 
esque if somewhat leisurely mode of transit, but one 
which, as the pilgrim by modern steamboat will ad- 
mit, shows the noble building to the best advantage 
as the journey's end draws near. 

Although the lover of Nell Gwynne generally 
lived '' quite privately " at Windsor, amusing him- 
self by fishing or strolling in the beautiful grounds, 
there were occasions when his visits to his Thames- 
side castle were fraught with danger. One plot 
against his life was intended to be carried out here 
by four ruffians ; on another occasion, when the sup- 
porters of his natural son, the Duke of Monmouth, 
were doing their best to force Charles to declare 
him his heir, an angry petition fell at his feet as 
he passed the Eound Tower while walking in his 
grounds. Charles, however, was to be justified of 
his belief that no one would kill him to make his 
brother James king. 

When that brother did succeed to the throne as 



Royal Windsor 137 

James II he was not destined to enjoy for long the 
pleasures of Windsor Castle. A little more than 
three years later, indeed, William of Orange had 
landed in England, and ere he had been in the coun- 
try a couple of months he is found issuing orders 
as though Windsor had belonged to him all his life. 
It appears that a shipload of red deer had arrived 
in the Thames from Germany, and the whole cargo 
was despatched to Windsor forest '' by his Royal 
Highness 's order, the Prince of Orange." The 
memory of William's wife sister. Queen Anne, is 
perpetuated by the famous Long Walk, while an in- 
edited document preserves an elaborate list of the 
sentinels of the Foot Guards who were to be posted 
about the castle on the occasion of the queen's 
birthday in 1713. All the gates were to have their 
guardians, the stairs were to be kept clear *' from 
any ordinary people," and her majesty's garden 
house was to be watched all day by a subaltern and 
thirty men. If the day did not pass without ** dis- 
order " it could not be blamed to the fault of the 
officer who drew up that list of sentinels. 

Eighteenth century associations of royal Wind- 
sor are chiefly concerned with several rather un- 
royal personages of the house of Hanover. First 
on the list came that elector who had the good for- 
tune to ascend the English throne as George I, a 
man who " had no notion of what is princely " and 
was as commonplace in his person as his speech was 



138 Royal Castles of England 

awkward. It is distinctly amusing to learn, on the 
authority of a contemporary letter, that this first 
of the Georges was '' perfectly well pleased " with 
Windsor, though he thought it would be more agree- 
able if the game supply were larger. It is needless 
to dwell upon the Windsor memories of the three 
succeeding Georges ; in the service of romance it is 
fitter for the imagination to linger over those more 
distant ages when the masters of this stately pal- 
ace were indubitably royal. 



CHAPTER X 

A FORTKESS OF MAGNA CHARTA DAYS 
COLCHESTER CASTLE 

Most ancient towns in England can boast the pos- 
session of a museum in which the proofs of its an- 
tiquity are displayed and labelled for the informa- 
tion of the curious, but few of those depositories 
can vie with that which is preserved at Colchester, 
the historically famous county town of Essex. Col- 
lected by the labours of the Essex Archaeological 
Society, the various objects in the museum tell a 
mutely eloquent story of the long centuries which 
have elapsed since the first human community was 
founded here on that River Coin which flows out 
into the North Sea. That hoard of ancient treas- 
ures includes countless objects of Roman origin, 
urns, and bricks, and fragments of tesselated pave- 
ments, and statues, and lamps, and coins, and rings, 
and medals. Nor is it alone in the museum that the 
modern visitor can gaze upon authentic relics of 
the far-off days of the Roman occupation of Bri- 
tain; in the remains of the town walls, in the 
masonry of one or two churches, and, above all, in 
the stonework of the venerable castle, the trained 
eye can still detect specimens of brickwork of 
Roman manufacture. 

139 



140 Royal Castles of England 

Some enthusiastic antiquaries have claimed a 
Eoman origin for the castle itself. . It is well known 
that the grotesque and pedantic Claudius was de- 
creed divine honours after his death, a cynical 
recompense for his removal by poison, and the the- 
ory is advanced that Colchester Castle was built 
originally as a temple of Claudius, and that the 
vaulted room usually described as the chapel was 
really the podium in front of the adytum of the 
shrine. Whatever be the truth of this surmise, 
there is far stronger evidence for the assertion that 
Colchester, which is now identified with the Eoman 
town of Camulodunum, was founded by Claudius 
and populated by a large number of Eomans who 
had been discharged from military service. 

But, according to the old chronicles, the royal 
associations of Colchester began in the pre-Eoman 
period. The early British kings are shadowy per- 
sons; dates and places are sadly lacking in their 
biographies; yet those of their number who figure 
in a serious dictionary of biography are entitled to 
respectful consideration. Among these a definite 
place is given to that monarch whom Shakespeare 
has immortalized in his " Cymbeline," but whose 
historic name was Cunobelinus. Nothing is known 
of his father or mother ; the year of his birth is not 
even guessed at ; the date of his death is given with 
a query; but it is accepted that during one period 
of his reign Cunobelinus had his chief residence at 



A Fortress of Magna Charta Days 141 

Colcliester. His possessions were so large that he 
was the leading British king of his age, and per- 
haps he might have founded an enduring dynasty 
had it not been for Claudius's conquest of Brit- 
ain. 

Another and more substantial figure is also asso- 
ciated with the earliest history of Colchester. Less 
than twenty years after the conquest of Claudius 
the power of Rome was challenged by an angry re- 
volt of the British tribes. One of the most faithful 
of the allies of the conquerors was Prasutagus, the 
king of the Iceni, who, at his death, to secure some 
of his property to his widow and daughters, made 
the Roman emperor joint heir to his possessions. 
But the plan failed ; the imperial representative laid 
claim to everything; and when Boadicea, the widow 
of Prasutagus, ventured to remonstrate, she was 
scourged as a common slave. Nor was that all; her 
daughters were violated by the Roman officers, an 
outrage which gave her an additional incentive to 
revenge. Hence the rebellion of the heroic queen. 
In the absence of the Roman governor, she raised 
her standard and soon rallied a large force of na- 
tives, all of whom had been oppressed beyond en- 
durance by their Roman conquerors. The brunt of 
the first attack fell upon the colony at Colchester, 
where the temple to Claudius was laid in ruins and 
the whole town reduced to ashes. It is trae Boadi- 
cea was at last defeated, but her amazonian hero- 



142 Royal Castles of England 

ism, and especially her destruction of Camulodu- 
nnm, will perpetuate her fame for all time. 

Legend has yet another story to tell of the Col- 
chester of the Roman days. According to this tra- 
dition a British prince named Coel had been en- 
trusted with the government of Camulodunum, but 
took advantage of the divided state of the empire 
to declare his independence, and establish himself 
as a non-tributary king. It was to overthrow this 
usurper that Constantius Chlorus led a Eoman army 
to the walls of Colchester, where, however, he was 
himself overcome by the fairness of Coel's daugh- 
ter Helena, ' ' a virgin of wondrous goodly beauty. ' ' 
So Constantius made peace with Coel on condition 
that he was given his daughter as his bride, and the 
story tells that from that union was born, in the 
besieged town itself, that son of Helena who is illus- 
trious as Constantine the Great. Helena, it is 
added, afterwards went on a pilgrimage to the Holy 
Land, where she discovered the true Cross, the 
memory of which is preserved by the Cross which 
figures in the Colchester borough arms. 

Although many of the objects in the town museum 
undoubtedly belong to the Eoman period, and can- 
not fail to have an intense interest for all who are 
imaginative enough to be able to reconstruct a pic- 
ture of the past by their aid, the theory which finds 
a Roman temple in the Norman castle of Colchester 
presents too many difficulties to warrant belief. 



A Fortress of Magna Charta Days 143 

According to the evidence of such records as have 
survived, plus the testimony of architecture, the 
building does not date any further back than the 
early years of the twelfth century. It is no doubt 
true that the builders availed themselves of much' 
old material, for the walls are formed of a mixture 
of Boman brick and flints, but the style of the keep, 
which is the only portion that has survived, is too 
much in harmony with other indubitably Norman 
castles to leave any room for doubt as to the period 
when it was erected. Whatever the exact date of 
its construction, it had been made a formidable 
stronghold by the time King John and his barons 
were in deadly conflict about the Great Charter. 

That struggle was inevitable; to the modern 
mind the chief marvel is that it was so long delayed. 
The causes which led to the charter of English liber- 
ties were many, but they all had their root in the 
intolerable tyranny of the Norman kings. The 
shadow of that tyranny darkens the pages of the 
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: *' God sees the wretched 
people most unjustly oppressed; first they are de- 
spoiled of their possessions, then murdered. This 
was a grievous year. Whoever had any property 
lost it by heavy taxes and unjust decrees. ' ' Justice 
was bought and sold ; an heir and his land were dis- 
posed of to the highest bidder ; permission to marry 
had to be purchased from the king; and the mon- 
arch demanded what taxes he thought fit to ap- 



144 Royal Castles of England 

praise. All this reached its climax in the reign of 
John, a prince, as Hallam said, *' utterly contemp- 
tible for his folly and cowardice." When to his 
exactions he added the debauchery of his nobles' 
wives and daughters, the storm burst. 

And a part of that storm broke on the walls of 
Colchester Castle. When the barons learnt that 
their king was raising forces for their repression, 
they each undertook the defence of a definite dis- 
trict of the country, in pursuit of which obligation 
it fell to the lot of Saer de Quincy, the first Earl of 
Winchester, to attack the castle of Colchester. For 
John had had the forethought to dismiss the cus- 
todian of that fortress and give it into the charge 
of a Fleming upon whose faithfulness he could rely, 
besides sending from London a good supply of mili- 
tary engines and engineers. Notwithstanding that 
preparation, the castle seems to have fallen an easy 
prey to De Quincy, who, however, was in turn at- 
tacked by the siege train which had been so success- 
ful in reducing Eochester Castle. The defence was 
stubborn, so stubborn that John himself came to 
direct the operations; but De Quincy held out for 
nearly two months, and then seems to have escaped 
safely to France. 

On the renewal of the war, which followed hard 
upon John's violating his vow to observe the condi- 
tions of Magna Charta, Colchester Castle was be- 
sieged once more, this time by the Dauphin of 



A Fortress of Magna Charta Days 145 

France, who had been invited to displace John on 
the English throne. This third attack does not 
appear to have been of long duration, and when the 
fortress was surrendered Louis ran up the flag of 
France on its battlements with his own hands. That 
anomaly, however, was soon ended, for on the death 
of John and the accession of Henry III the barons, 
having made a friendly arrangement with the Dau- 
phin, realized that the wisest plan was for them to 
rely upon themselves rather than upon foreign as- 
sistance for the protection of their liberties. This 
turn of affairs left De Quincy free to fulfill his vow 
as a crusader, but the defender of Colchester Castle 
fell sick and died soon after he reached the Holy 
Land in 1219. 

Many generations were to elapse ere another oc- 
cupant of the English throne visited the ancient 
castle of Colchester. And this time it was a queen, 
the first queen-regnant of the land, namely Henry 
VIII 's daughter Mary. Cut off from the succession 
by her brother, Edward VI, whether by his own will 
or at the instigation of his chief adviser, it was only 
by the prompt action of her friends that she was 
able to defeat the supporters of Lady Jane G-rey. 
No doubt it was a surprise to her that the protes- 
tant town of Colchester cast in its lot with those 
other towns which upheld her title to the throne, in 
recognition of which loyalty Mary paid a special 
visit to the town on her way to London. The mayor 



146 Royal Castles of England 

and corporation, blissfully ignorant of the religious 
persecutions which were to be inflicted on their 
townsfolk years later, did their best to show their 
appreciation of the visit, presenting the queen with 
a silver cup and a purse containing twenty pounds 
in gold, besides providing a generous feast of beef 
and veal and wine for Mary and her attendants. 

Less than a century later the Essex town was to 
undergo one more baptism of fire owing to the dif- 
ferences of king and people. In the summer of 1648 
the friends of Charles I decided that it might yet be 
possible to re-establish the cause of their sovereign, 
and when the natives of Kent were stirred to take 
arms against the Parliament once more Sir Charles 
Lucas persuaded the Essex royalists to make yet 
another appeal to arms. It was owing to the influ- 
ence of Lucas that the town of Colchester was seized 
in the name of the king and then held against a 
large parliamentary force commanded by Fairfax. 
A contemporary account of the siege describes how 
the royalists, like the Jews in Jerusalem, with their 
swords in one hand and their trowels in the other 
' ' began to repair the ruins of our walls which were 
many," and how a search through the town for 
arms, ammunition and food revealed but scanty 
supplies. But they made a brave defence, and even 
when the allowance of bread was reduced to seven 
ounces a day it was '^ received without murmur- 
ing." The inhabitants were in a different case; 



A Fortress of Magna Charta Days 147 

they were reduced to such extremities that they had 
to eat soap and candles; and at length nothing re- 
mained but surrender. It had been an eleven weeks ' 
task for the besiegers, one of whom, in typically 
pious phrase, wrote his wife a full account of what 
God had done '' by weak arms." The same devout 
chronicler also told how '' Sir Charles Lucas and 
Sir George Lisle were both harquebusierd this af- 
ternoon." In other words, notwithstanding that 
the terms of capitulation implied that quarter would 
be given to all, the two gallant defenders were 
posted against the north wall of the castle and shot 
down like dogs by three files of musketeers. And 
for many generations the people of Colchester were 
wont to point to a bare spot of earth beside the 
castle wall as proof that nature so abhorred that 
deed that it refused to cover it with an obliterating 
mantle of grass. Yet that murder was perpetrated 
by men who were always prating about their belief 
in *' a God of love! " 



CHAPTER XI 

A COSTLY GUEST 
HEDINGHAM CASTLE 

Although it is by virtue of two visits, one from 
a queen and the other from a king, that Hedingham 
Castle can claim a place among the royal castles of 
England, it must be admitted that on its own ac- 
count, as the chief fortress and principal residence 
of the illustrious family of De Vere, the handsome 
Norman keep that still stands in stately pride near 
the River Colne in the north of the county of Essex 
must always be an object of absorbing interest to 
all lovers of romance. Even if it were not for the 
ornate tombs of ** ladies dead and lovely knights ** 
which survive in village church or city minster, that 
massive building will preserve for many a century 
the memory of a family distinguished above most 
noble lineages not only for the fame of many of its 
scions but also for the fact that the De Veres held 
one earldom in the male line for more than five and 
a half centuries. 

It was in connection with the last of that race that 
Macaulay penned his glowing eulogy of the family, 
a eulogy which, despite several small inaccuracies, 
is still the best summary of the services and genius 
of the De Veres. '' The noblest subject in Eng- 

148 




FKOJI AN OLD ENGRAVINd 



HEDINGHAM CASTLE. 



A Costly Guest 149 

land," the historian wrote, " and indeed, as Eng- 
lishmen loved to say, the noblest subject in Europe, 
was Aubrey de Vere, the twentieth and last of the 
old Earls of Oxford. He derived his title, through 
an uninterrupted male descent, from a time when 
the families of Howard and Seymour were still ob- 
scure, when the Nevilles and Percies enjoyed only a 
provincial celebrity, and when even the great name 
of Plantagenet had not yet been heard in England. 
One of the chief of the house of De Vere had held 
high command at Hastings : another had marched, 
with Godfrey and Tancred, over heaps of slaugh- 
tered Moslem, to the sepulchre of Christ. The first 
Earl of Oxford had been the minister of Henry 
Beauclerc. The third Earl had been conspicuous 
among the lords who extorted the Great Charter 
from John. The seventh Earl had fought bravely 
at Cressy and Poictiers. The thirteenth Earl had, 
through many vicissitudes of fortune, been the chief 
of the party of the Red Rose, and had led the van 
on the decisive day of Bosworth. The seventeenth 
Earl had shone at the court of Elizabeth, and had 
won for himself an honourable place among the 
early masters of English poetry. The nineteenth 
Earl had fallen in arms for the Protestant religion 
and for the liberties of Europe under the walls of 
Maestricht." It would have heightened Macauley's 
picture had he reminded his reader of the startling 
contrast between the first and the last of the De 



150 Royal Castles of England 

Veres, for while the founder of the family re- 
nounced his vast possessions and took the habit of 
a monk, the last of his descendants was sufficiently 
lax in his morals to win a conspicuous place in the 
spicy '' Memoirs " of Count Grammont. 

Such a historic peerage, the succession of which 
continued from 1142 to 1703, would naturally ap- 
peal to Macaulay's sense of the picturesque; but 
he was not the first eulogist of the family, for when, 
in 1626, there was a dispute about the rightful heir 
to the title, the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Eandolph 
Crew, waxed eloquent in praise of the antiquity of 
the De Vere line. After describing how the founder 
came in with the Conqueror, Sir Eandolph sketched 
the history of the race in outline, and then added: 
*' This great honour, this high and noble dignity 
hath continued ever since in the remarkable sur- 
name of De Vere, by so many ages, descents and 
generations, as no other kingdom can produce such 
a peer in one and the self-same name and title. I 
find in all this length of time but two attainders of 
this noble family, and those in stormy and tempes- 
tuous times, when the government was unsettled, 
and the kingdom in competition. I have laboured 
to make a covenant with myself that affection may 
not press upon judgment, for I suppose there is no 
man that hath any apprehension of gentry or noble- 
ness, but his affection stands to the continuance of 
so noble a name and house, and would take hold of 



A Costly Guest 151 

a twig or a twine thread to uphold it. And yet, 
Time hath his revolutions ; there must be a period 
and end to all things temporal, an end of names 
and dignities and whatsoever is terrene, and why 
not of De Vere? For where is BohunI Where is 
Mowbray? Where is Mortimer? Nay, which is 
more and most of all, where is Plantagenet? They 
are entombed in the urns and sepulchres of mortal- 
ity ! And yet let the name and dignity of De Vere 
stand so long as it pleaseth God." Notwithstand- 
ing that pious hope, some seventy years later the 
name of De Vere was also entombed in the urns 
and sepulchres of mortality. 

But the fame of the name and the peerage has 
continued unabated to modern times. When Ten- 
nyson elected to write a dramatic poem about a 
'' daughter of a hundred earls " he christened his 
heroine " Lady Clara Vere de Vere," while the 
honour of being able to use the title of the Earl of 
Oxford is held in such high esteem that even a duke 
has laid claim to being the lineal descendant of its 
former owners. 

Had the line continued to this day its representa- 
tive would have been a unique link with the Norman 
Conquest, for there is no denying that the De Vere 
estates in Essex were part of the reward for the 
services of Aubrey de Vere at the battle of Hast- 
ings. In view of his monkish end he is hardly likely 
to have begun the building of Hedingham Castle j 



152 Royal Castles of England 

most probably that stronghold was erected by the 
Aubrey who died in 1141. It was his son, another 
Aubrey, who was created Earl of Oxford in 1142, 
though some have dated the title from a charter of 
fourteen years later. In any case, the dignity was 
held by the family for an unprecedented period. 

Many of the lords of Hedingham Castle played 
a conspicuous part in the aifairs of their native 
land, for, in addition to those enumerated by Ma- 
caulay, it deserves to be remembered that the fifth 
Earl sided with Simon de Montfort in his opposi- 
tion to Henry III, while the ninth earl attained a 
bad pre-eminence as a favourite of Richard II and 
was the first marquis created by an English king. 
While, too, the historian celebrated the thirteenth 
earl for his loyalty to the cause of the Red Rose, 
he omitted to note that his father and brother paid 
a far higher price for their faithfulness, inasmuch 
as they were beheaded for their adherence to the 
house of Lancaster. Perhaps, however, the two 
scions of the De Vere race who occupy the largest 
space in English history were John the thirteenth 
and Edward the seventeenth earls, the former being 
one of the most valiant among the supporters of 
Henry VII and the latter a notable figure in the 
** spacious days " of Elizabeth. 

Much celebrated for his hospitality, and praised 
as '' a brave, wise, magnificent, learned, and relig- 
ious man," John de Vere gave many proofs of his 



I 



A Costly Guest 153 

high courage. Leading the van of the Red Rose 
forces at the battle of Barnet, he fought valiantly 
and had won a marked success when, through his 
men being mistaken for the enemy, he was obliged 
to fly from the field. Escaping to France he bided 
his time, and then fitted out a little fleet of vessels 
and took possession of St. Michael's Mount off the 
coast of Cornwall. This he held for several months, 
only surrendering on condition that his life was 
spared. Sent as a prisoner to France, he escaped 
after three years' captivity, and then joined the 
forces of Henry in his struggle for the English 
throne. At the field of Bosworth he again proved 
his mettle as a fighter and general, contributing 
more than any other leader to the victory which 
gave the crown to Henry VII. And all through the 
reign of that king, as may be read in the Paston 
Letters, John, Earl of Oxford, was one of the 
staunchest supporters of the Lancastrian monarch. 
Many of the Paston Letters, it will be remembered, 
are dated by the Earl from ' ' my castell of Hedyng- 
ham, ' ' which was still the favourite residence of the 
De Veres. 

Edward de Vere, the seventeenth Earl, succeeded 
to the title when a lad of twelve, the result being 
that he became a royal ward and as such was com- 
mitted to the charge of Elizabeth's famous minister. 
Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burghley. As 
he spent the impressionable years of his youth in 



154 Royal Castles of England 

Cecil's London house, it is hardly surprising that he 
grew up with a preference for town life, a fact 
which explains his indifference as to what became 
of his ancestors ' country seat at Hedingham Castle. 
In his twenty-second year he married Cecil 's daugh- 
ter Anne, and thenceforward he took a prominent 
place at Elizabeth's court. His advance in the 
queen's favour was rapid. '' My Lord of Oxford," 
wrote a correspondent of the time, " is lately 
grown into great credit; for the Queen's Majesty 
delighteth more in his personage, and his dancing, 
and valiantness, than any other. I think Sussex 
doth back him all that he can ; if it were not for his 
fickle head, he would pass any of them shortly. My 
Lady Burghley unwisely has declared herself, as it 
were, jealous, which is come to the Queen's ear; 
whereat she has been not a little offended with her. ' ' 
Had it not been for his " fickle head " Oxford 
might have been numbered among the intimate fa- 
vourites of Elizabeth ; he had an attractive person, 
was accomplished in the arts of the tournament, 
dressed well, and could turn a sonnet with the 
best. 

But his '' fickle head," plus a headstrong spirit, 
was his undoing. His fondness for gorgeous dress 
and jewelry soon plunged him into debt, and soon 
after his marriage he sold Hedingham and his es- 
tates there to his father-in-law. Several years later 
he set out for a tour on the continent, leaving be- 



A Costly Guest 155 

hind him a long list of debts, the queen herself 
heading the list as a creditor for more than three 
thousand pounds. The other indebtednesses of this 
spendthrift courtier included large sums due to 
goldsmiths, jewellers, mercers, upholsters, embroid- 
erers, haberdashers, armourers, drapers, tailors, 
and shoemakers. It is in keeping with all this love 
of finery that when he returned from the continent 
he brought with him a large assortment of per- 
fumes, embroidered gloves, and other luxurious 
articles of dress, he being the first, as Stow asserted, 
to introduce scents and embroidered gloves into 
England. AVliat with his debts and his enormous 
outlay on the adornment of his person, the Earl 
" sent his patrimony flying; " the support of his 
wife devolved upon her father, such sums as Oxford 
could raise by sale after sale of his possessions be- 
ing devoted to his own use. Yet all the time he bore 
himself in a proud and presumptuous manner, 
scrupling not to use threatening language to the 
powerful Burghley. It was not until several years 
after his death that his successor sold a number of 
the family manors to re-purchase Hedingham 
Castle, but somewhere about the year 1625 that 
ancient home of the De Veres passed finally into 
other hands. 

At the time the castle was in the possession of 
Lord Burghley it was in perfect repair and included 
many buildings which no longer exist. But the su- 



156 Royal Castles of England 

perb keep, which is accounted one of the finest in 
all England, enables the modern pilgrim to form an 
adequate impression of the aspect the building bore 
when Matilda of Boulogne, the queen of Stephen, 
came hither on a spring visit in the year 1151. That 
much-tried woman and her usurping husband had 
good reason to count upon the friendship of the 
De Veres. Some twelve years earlier Aubrey de 
Vere had pleaded the cause of Stephen before an 
important council, and two years subsequently had 
lost his life in a London riot which had been occa- 
sioned by the unsettled condition of the country. 
His son, another Aubrey, the first of the earls of 
Oxford, was now lord of Hedingham Castle and the 
host of Queen Matilda. The occasion of her visit 
to the Essex stronghold is unknown; all that is on 
record is that a few days after her arrival she was 
taken ill of a fever, and, on the third of May, passed 
quietly away. Her body was taken to the abbey of 
Faversham for interment, where for many genera- 
tions a Latin inscription, now preserved only in 
manuscript, told the story of her life : " In the year 
one thousand one hundred and fifty-one, not to her 
own, but to our great loss, the happy Matilda, the 
wife of King Stephen, died, ennobled by her virtues 
as by her titles. She was a true worshipper of God, 
and a real patroness of the poor. She lived sub- 
missive to God, that she might afterwards enjoy 
his presence. If ever woman deserved to be carried 



A Costly Guest 157 

by the hands of angels to heaven, it was this holy 
queen. ' ' 

But the chief royal association of Hedingham 
Castle is concerned with a hospitality which did not 
end in a funeral. It has been recorded above that 
Henry VII had no more faithful lord than John de 
Vere, the seventh Earl of Oxford, and the Paston 
Letters seem to show that that monarch visited 
Hedingham Castle on several occasions. But the 
visit which the lord of Hedingham had most cause 
to remember took place in the summer of 1498. 
Thanks to the elaborate preparations Oxford had 
maHe, the king appears to have thoroughly enjoyed 
the hospitality of the castle, nothing occurring to 
mar the pleasure of his weeks' stay. 

When the time came, however, for the king's 
leave-taking the ceremony Oxford had arranged for 
that occasion led to an unexpected climax. There is 
no doubt that the scene took place in that noble au- 
dience chamber which yet occupies the chief floor 
of the castle, a splendid apartment measuring some 
forty feet in length by thirty feet in width with a 
handsome circular arch and many decorated niches. 
What happened here on that summer day of 1498 
is told by Francis Bacon in his life of Henry VII, 
in which he pays due tribute to De Vere's '* noble 
and sumptuous " entertainment. " At the king's 
going away," he adds, '^ the earl's servants stood, 
in a seemly manner, in their livery coats, with cog- 



158 Royal Castles of England 

nisances, ranged on both sides, and made the king 
a lane. The king called the earl to him, and said, 
* My lord, I have heard much of your hospitality, 
but I see it is greater than the speech : these hand- 
some gentlemen and yeomen, which I see on both 
sides of me, are sure your menial servants.' The 
earl smiled, and said, ' It may please your Grace, 
that were not for mine own ease : they are most of 
them my retainers, that are come to do me service 
at such a time as this, and chiefly to see your Grace. ' 
The king started a little, and said, * By my faith, 
my lord, I thank you for your good cheer, but I may 
not endure to have my laws broken in my sight ; my 
attorney must speak with you.' And it is part of 
the report, that the earl compounded for no less 
than fifteen thousand marks." In other words, the 
desire of the Earl of Oxford to show fit honour to 
]iis royal guest cost him no less a sum than ten 
thousand pounds! 

But why that '' villanous fine," as Horace Wal- 
pole called it? By some historians it has been cited 
as another proof of what Bacon calls the '^ near- 
ness " of Henry VII, an adroit device to add to his 
own wealth. But Hume reminds us that during the 
reign of that king hardly a session passed without 
the framing of some statute against engaging re- 
tainers and giving them badges or liveries, the in- 
tention being to weaken the power of the great 
nobles. That being the case perhaps it was not 



A Costly Guest 159 

surprising that Henry proved so costly a guest to 
the lord of Hedingham, though it must be admitted 
that a fine of ten thousand pounds was a harsh re- 
turn for Oxford's princely hospitality. 

By the time Walpole visited Hedingham in the 
summer of 1748 the glory of the castle had grown 
dim. The place was now shrunk, he wrote, ' ' to one 
vast curious tower, that stands on a high hill with 
a large fosse." And his guide pointed out in the 
distance the ^' miserable cottage " in which the 
last of the De Vere's had died in poverty. Thus the 
stately keep of Hedingham is a memorial not only 
of the proud race of De Vere but of that mutability 
against which vast wealth and ancient lineage are 
no defence. 



n 

MIDLAND ENGLAND 



CHAPTER I 

QUEEN Mary's refuge 

FRAMLINGHAM CASTLE 

Some thirty years ago visitors to the annual ex- 
hibition of the Eoyal Academy in London were ar- 
rested by a singularly pathetic picture entitled 
^' The Last Days of Edward VL" The scene was 
laid in a room of the royal palace at Greenwich, at 
the open window of which the attendants of the 
youthful but dying king were uplifting his wasted 
form that the populace outside might see for them- 
selves that their sovereign was still alive. But on 
Edward's face the artist had set the hue of ap- 
proaching death, while his attitude betrayed the 
poignant indifference of utter weakness. 

Through the chronicles of the time it is possible 
to supplement that melancholy picture. For some 
months through the winter of 1552-3 the lad had 
been ailing; in April he was removed to Green- 
wich; early in June the lords in immediate attend- 
ance upon his person realized that the end was not 
far distant. That fact was of supreme importance 
to one of their number, namely, John Dudley, Duke 
of Northumberland. He was playing for high 
stakes. If the young Edward were to die and be 

163 



164 Royal Castles of England 

succeeded by his sister Mary, the child of Henry 
VIII and Catherine of Arragon, not only would he 
be probably compelled to restore the property he 
had pillaged from the religious houses, but, unless 
he recanted his Protestant faith for Catholicism, 
his very life would be in danger. 

Foreseeing all this, Northumberland bethought 
him how he could prevent such disaster. The first 
step in his scheme was to marry his son Guildford 
to the Lady Jane Grey, one of Edward's cousins; 
the second was to persuade the dying king to draw 
up such a will as would exclude his sisters Mary 
and Elizabeth from the succession and bestow his 
crown upon the Lady Jane Grey and the heirs of 
her body. This was a heavy task, but Northumber- 
land was equal to its execution. And so it came to 
pass that by the middle of June, 1553, everything 
was in order for the carrying out of Northumber- 
land's conspiracy, — an ambitious conspiracy which 
would elevate his son and daughter-in-law to the 
throne of England. Nothing remained save to await 
the death of the king. 

And late in the evening of July 6th the suffering 
youth passed peacefully away. Although long ex- 
pected, that event happened before Northumberland 
was quite ready; perhaps it would be more correct 
to say that when the event came he realized that 
something was lacking to ensure the success of his 
plot. His omission was brought home to him early 



Queen Mary's Refuge 165 

the following morning. Northumberland was still 
in bed when one of his supporters asked the duke's 
son whether arrangements had been taken to arrest 
the person of the Princess Mary. None had. 
'' "What," he exclaimed, '' will you let the Lady 
Mary escape, and not secure her person? '* It 
seemed incredible that such an important matter 
had been overlooked; and that day, while yet the 
news of Edward's death was prevented from being 
publicly known, an effort was made to rectify the 
blunder. The device took the form of a letter to 
Mary; her brother, it said, was exceedingly weak, 
and had expressed a desire to see her. The letter 
was duly delivered to Mary at her house at Huns- 
don, and she actually set out to answer it in person. 
Had she completed that journey she would never 
have been queen of England; once in the power of 
Northumberland he would have taken good care to 
provide for her secure keeping. 

But a warning reached her ere it was too late. 
"Who sent that warning is one of the problems of 
history. By some the friendly service is credited 
to the Earl of Arundel; others have accepted the 
assertion of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton that he was 
the means of preventing Mary from falling into 
Northumberland's trap. Throckmorton's autobiog- 
raphy was told in verse by some unknown writer, 
and the stanzas relating to this episode of English 
history present such an admirable summary of 



166 Royal Castles of England 

events that tliey deserve quotation. It should be 
remembered that the story is supposed to be nar- 
rated by Throckmorton himself. 

" Mourning, from Greenwich I did straight depart 
To London, to an house which bore our name. 
My brethren guessed by my heavy heart 
The King was dead, and I confess'd the same: 
The hushing of his death I did unfold, 
Their meaning to proclaim queen Jane I told. 

" And, though I lik'd not the religion 

Which all her life queen Mary had professed, 
Yet in my mind that wicked motion 
Right heirs for to displace I did detest. 
Causeless to profer any injury, 
I meant it not, but sought for remedy. 

" Wherefore from four of us the news was sent, 
How that her brother he was dead and gone; 
In post her goldsmith then from London went. 
By whom the message was dispatched anon. 
She asked, * If we knew it certainly? ' 
Who answered, ' Sir Nicholas knew it verily.' " 

Whether that is the true version, or whether the 
Earl of Arundel contrived to send a messenger to 
Mary, the important fact for her was that she 
learnt ere too late that the letter from Edward was 
a hoax, and that it behoved her, for the moment, to 
seek safety in flight. She acted with great promp- 
titude, resolving there and then to retire to her 
Norfolk house at Kenninghall. But as the journey 
was too long for one day, the fugitive queen halted 
for the night at Sawston Hall, a mansion not far 



Queen Mary's Refuge 167 

from Cambridge belonging to the Catholic family of 
Huddlestone. News of her presence there, however, 
quickly became known in Cambridge, and the fol- 
lowing morning there set out from that town a 
band of resolute Protestants who were determined 
to take her prisoner. They failed in their enter- 
prise; once more a timely warning reached Mary, 
enabling her to don a disguise and so escape. Her 
immediate danger was over, for late that day she 
reached Kenninghall in safety. 

Although her followers were few and despite the 
fact that she had no knowledge of the extent to 
which she could count upon the support of the chief 
lords and the nation, Mary lost no time in asserting 
her rights to the vacant throne. Hence the letter 
which she dispatched to the council from Kenning- 
hall on the ninth of July, a letter in which she 
charged her lords to cause her right and title to 
the crown to be proclaimed in London and else- 
where without delay. What step to take next 
caused her some perplexity; if her foes should 
come to attack her, she had no army to meet them 
in battle, neither was Kenninghall strong enough 
to withstand a siege. But some twenty miles dis- 
tant was the castle of Framlingham, which had been 
placed at her disposal by her late brother ; that was 
a sturdy fortress encircled with three lines of de- 
fence, and, besides, it was only a few miles from 
the North Sea, over which, if the worst came, she 



168 Royal Castles of England 



could escape to seek help elsewhere. On all ac 
counts, then, Framlingham Castle would offer her 
the securest refuge, and thither Mary journeyed on 
the tenth or eleventh of July. 

Now it so fortuned that the custodian of Fram- 
lingham was a man of the Catholic faith, and that 
while its defences were in good order its inward 
plenishing made it fit for the residence of a queen. 
What would make the building still more acceptable 
to Mary was that it contained a little chapel con- 
secrated to the Catholic ritual, with a cloth of arras 
depicting the passion of Christ, and that a priest of 
her own belief still tended the altar there. Her 
reception was as hearty as she could desire; the 
governor gladly surrendered the building to one 
whom he naturally regarded as his rightful queen; 
and that night the royal standard was unfurled 
from the castle battlements in token of Mary's 
claim to the crown. 

Leaving her in the security of Framlingham 
Castle, it is necessary, for the moment, to give some 
account of the course of events in London. Mary's 
letter of the ninth of July had been delivered to the 
Duke of Northumberland and duly read in council, 
but it availed not to turn him from his purpose. 
On his motion a reply was drafted, to which twenty- 
one of the councillors signed their names. That 
letter informed the fugitive princess that, in ac- 
cordance with the will of her late brother, the Lady 



^ 



Queen Mary's Refuge 169 

Jane Grey had already been proclaimed queen of 
England, reminded her that she had been declared 
illegitimate, and advised her to submit herself to 
the mercy of Queen Jane. 

In its announcement of the proclamation of the 
new queen that letter to Mary told the truth. On 
the afternoon of the tenth of July the Lady Jane 
had been conveyed to the Tower of London, to be 
there formally informed of her accession to the 
crown. She was no more than a pawn in Northum- 
berland's high game; it was not by her will or de- 
sire that she entered into competition with the 
daughter of Henry VIII; whatever fault may be 
urged against England's nine days' queen personal 
ambition cannot be laid to her charge. Once the 
hollow ceremony in the Tower was completed, 
Northumberland thought it time to make a public 
announcement of Edward's death and the name of 
his successor. About seven o'clock that evening, 
then, three heralds and a trumpeter, with the king's 
sheriff in attendance, proceeded to the cross in the 
Cheap and there proclaimed to the citizens of Lon- 
don that Edward VI was dead and that the Lady 
Jane was queen of England; but though a large 
crowd gathered for the ceremony it was noted that 
*' few or none said ' God save her.' " Nay, there 
were some who had the courage to question those 
doings. For in the crowd stood a young man named 
Gilbert Potter, a humble tavern servant, who was 



170 



Royal Castles of England 



heard to ejaculate that '' the Lady Mary has the 
better title." For reward he was promptly seized, 
hurried to the pillory and nailed thereto by both 
his ears. 

Nor was the exclamation of that tavern servant 
the only ominous sign of the times. When North- 
umberland and his supporters met in council two 
days later they were purturbed to learn that their 
high-handed proceedings had not won the approval 
of the nation. On the contrary, it was reported that 
numerous influential lords and knights were hurry- 
ing to Mary at Framlingham and that several towns 
had proclaimed her queen. ' ' Whereupon by speedy 
council it was there concluded that the Duke of 
Suffolk, with certain other noblemen, should go 
towards the Lady Mary, to fetch her up to London." 
That suggestion, however, did not meet with unan- 
imous approval; Queen Jane implored that her 
father, the Duke of Suffolk, might tarry by her side ; 
whereupon the council invited the Duke of North- 
umberland to assume the task of leading the expe- 
dition to Framlingham. He was, they said, the best 
man of war in the realm; none was so fit as he to 
take that enterprise in hand. This flattery effected 
its purpose; ''Well," said the duke, ''since ye 
think it good, I and mine will go, not doubting of 
your fidelity to the queen's majesty, whom I leave 
in your custody." 

So preparations for the enterprise were at once 



Queen Mary's Refuge 171 

put in hand. Northumberland gave orders for the 
assembling of all his own retainers, carts were 
loaded with the munitions of war, field pieces were 
requisitioned, and six ships were equipped to sail 
towards the east coast lest Mary should try to es- 
cape over the sea. Some six thousand men were 
gathered together, but as the little army marched 
out of London its general observed to one who rode 
by his side, '' The people press to see us, but not 
one saith ' God speed you.' " 

Meanwhile certain documents headed " Jane the 
Queen " and endorsed with the great seal were is- 
sued, in each of which the ill-fated instrument of 
Northumberland's ambition was made to appeal 
to her " righty trusty and right well-beloved " 
cousins. In one she asked assistance against the 
'' feigned and untrue claim of the Lady Mary, bas- 
tard daughter to our great uncle Henry the Eighth 
of famous memory; " in another she exhorted her 
subjects to remain fast in their obedience and duty 
to the crown notwithstanding the " slanderous re- 
ports or letters " which had been circulated by the 
Lady Mary and her adherents. 

But how had that Lady Mary fared in her refuge 
at Framlingham Castle? Excellently well. Each 
day some new supporter arrived at the castle, lords 
and knights who offered her not only the service 
of their swords and lives but also the devotion of 
their numerous followers. Taking courage from 



172 Royal Castles of England 

such accessions of strength, Mary began to assume 
the aggressive. Not only did she issue commands 
to the lords, lieutenants and sheriffs of the counties 
to come to her aid, and bid the towns proclaim her 
accession to the throne, but on learning that North- 
umberland was on his way to Framlingham with an 
army she offered a reward of a thousand pounds to 
any who would capture that duke and lead him to 
her presence. 

Most of those royal orders were immediately 
obeyed. In town after town the officials made due 
proclamation that the daughter of Henry VIII had 
succeeded to the throne as Queen Mary, while the 
influx of armed men was so great that in a little 
while the castle of Framlingham was surrounded 
by an army of some thirty thousand volunteers. 
Nor were supplies lacking for that unexpected host. 
"While the little parish of Worlingworth some seven 
miles distant contributed malt and ale and butter 
and cheese, the distant town of Colchester added 
three tuns of beer to the stores. Day by day, in- 
deed, signs multiplied that the nation was wroth 
with Northumberland; he had laid his plans so 
clumsily that he had been found out on the threshold 
of his conspiracy; besides which a sense of fair 
play prompted the conclusion that the rightful suc- 
cessor of Edward VI was none other than the elder 
of his two sisters. Whatever fears the Protestants 
might have had as to the danger to their faith that 



Queen Mary's Refuge 173 

might ensue from a Catholic queen, they were al- 
layed by Mary's assurance that she would not 
change the laws of the land. 

From the time she reached Framlingham Castle 
there was no check to Mary's good fortune. Per- 
haps there was one anxious hour when it was learnt 
that a fleet of six vessels was sailing along the ad- 
jacent coast, but even that event was soon trans- 
formed into a cause for rejoicing. Those ships, 
which had been sent to prevent Mary's flight over 
the North Sea, were driven into Yarmouth by stress 
of weather, and it so happened that at that time 
Sir Henry Jerningham, one of Mary's most zealous 
supporters, was recruiting in the neighbourhood. 
Hastening to Yarmouth he and several of his com- 
panions took a boat and rowed out to the vessels. 
Hailed in a friendly manner by the sailors, they 
were asked what they wanted and whether they de- 
sired the captains of the fleet. '' Yea, marry," 
answered Jerningham; to which the sailors made 
reply, *' Ye shall have them, or else we will throw 
them to the bottom of the sea." But the captains 
seem to have been as willing as their men to declare 
for Queen Mary; at any rate, even if they made a 
virtue of necessity, they at once joined Jerning- 
ham 's forces and marched with him to Framling- 
ham. 

Nor was that the only misfortune which befell 
the Duke of Northumberland. The promises that 



174 



Royal Castles of England 



he should be sent reinforcements on his inarch had 
not been kept; the soldiers who were with him 
began to grow lukewarm and finally refused to pro- 
ceed any farther; and when he turned back and 
had reached Cambridge he was startled to learn 
that the Lady Mary had been proclaimed queen in 
London on the nineteenth of July! That was no 
idle tale; in the absence of Northumberland the 
lords of the council had deserted his cause, and the 
nine days' reign of -the Lady Jane was at an end. 
Nor did it avail the defeated noble that he turned 
traitor to his daughter-in-law by himself proclaim- 
ing Mary at Cambridge ; the next day the Earl of 
Arundel reached that town and arrested Northum- 
berland in Mary's name. 

Notwithstanding all these strokes of good for- 
tune, Mary was in no hurry to leave her refuge. 
The break-up of Northumberland's conspiracy and 
the fact of her proclamation in London must have 
been known by her on the twentieth of July, yet she 
tarried at Framlingham for another ten days. That 
delay may have been dictated by caution; or, on 
the other hand, it may have been due to her enjoy- 
ment of her surroundings. Certainly the latter 
were wholly desirable; charmingly situated in a 
picturesque countryside, a '' very fair and beauti- 
ful " building, the castle of Framlingham was 
worthy of its regal guest. 
For the new queen of England was not the first 



Queen Mary's Refuge 175 

royal visitor to that Suffolk stronghold. A part of 
its history may be read in the lines of a local poet : 

" Heir of antiquity! — fair castled town, 
Rare spot of beauty, grandeur, and renown, 
Seat of East Anglian Kings! — proud child of fame, 
Hallowed by time, illustrious Framlinghame! 
I touch my lyre, delighted thus to bring 
To thee my heart's full homage while I sing. 
And thou, old Castle — thy bold turrets high, 
Have shed their deep enchantment to mine eye. 
Though years have chang'd thee, I have gazed intent 
In silent joy on tower and battlement. 
Where all thy time-worn glories met my sight, 
Then have I felt such rapture, such delight. 
That, had the splendour of thy days of yore 
Flash'd on my view I had not loved thee more. 
Scene of immortal deeds, thy walls have rung 
To pealing shouts from many a warrior's tongue, 
When first thy founder, Redwald of the spear, 
Manned thy high tower, defied his foemen near. 
When, girt with strength. East AngUa's King of old, 
The sainted Edmund, sought thy sheltering hold. 
When the proud Dane, fierce Hinguar, in his ire, 
Besieged the King, and wrapped thy walls in fire, 
While Edmund fled, but left thee with his name 
Linked, and for ever, to the chain of fame. 
Thou wast then great! and long, in other years 
Thy grandeur shone — thy portraiture appears. 
From history's pencil like a summer night. 
With much of shadow, but with more of light." 

Although some parts of the present ruins may 
preserve portions of an older building, the bulk of 
the crumbling masonry belongs most probably to the 
closing generation of the twelfth century, for the 
castle seems to have been entirely rebuilt about 



176 Royal Castles of England 



the year 1170. TMs, of course, was long anterior 
to that half -legendary time when Framlingham af- 
forded a temporary haven for that king of East 
Anglia who by his martyrdom and burial gave his 
name to the ancient town of St. Edmund's Bury. 
It was more than a century later, too, than the gift 
of the manor by William the Conqueror to that 
Eoger Bigod who had given the Norman duke such 
valuable aid at the battle of Hastings. Framling- 
ham remained in the possession of his descendants 
for many years, afterwards becoming successively 
the property of a brother of a king of England, the 
Segraves, the Mowbrays, and the Howards. 

For more than two and a half centuries, then, this 
noble castle was one of the chief seats of the suc- 
cessive dukes of Norfolk, a fact which has enriched 
its annals with countless associations with some of 
the most distinguished figures in English history. 
Glimpses of life in the old castle during the fifteenth 
century shine out here and there in the quaint pages 
of the Paston Letters, many of which were dated 
from Framlingham. We see the great state, almost 
regal, kept by the noble owner, and learn how he, 
as though a monarch, had his council for the debate 
of his affairs ; now there is a little picture of a birth 
in the family, anon the scene changes to a death- 
bed; through other pages there resounds the clash 
of arms of the War of the Ro&es. Duke succeeded 
to duke, the line changed from Mowbray to How- 



or I 



Queen Mary's Refuge 177 

ard, now the head of the house is in high honour 
with his king and now in deep disgrace, but amid 
all mutations Framlingham Castle remained a 
steady landmark in the family history. One of its 
latest masters was Thomas Howard, third duke of 
his line, who had the good fortune to be saved from 
the scaffold by the death of Henry VIII, for that 
monarch passed away on the very day which had 
been fixed for Norfolk's execution. He was, how- 
ever, detained in prison during the whole of Ed- 
ward VI 's reign, only securing his freedom when 
Mary ascended the throne. And now he sleeps at 
Framlingham, in the church which lies under the 
shadow of that castle which had been so sure a 
refuge for his deliverer. 



CHAPTER II 

THE '' SHE wolf's " CAGE 
CASTLE RISING 

SuEELY no royal bride ever began her wedded life 
under more promising conditions than Isabella the 
Fair, the queen-consort of Edward II. The daugh- 
ter of Philip le Bel of France and Joan of Navarre, 
endowed with such loveliness that Froissart de- 
scribed her as " one of the fairest ladies of the 
world," she was but sixteen years old when she 
became the wife of the English king, a bridegroom 
of twenty-four summers and tall and handsome 
and of great bodily strength. So eager had her 
lover been to claim her as his bride that he neglected 
many of his late father's injunctions to hurry to 
his espousals. Edward had been so fired by the 
reports of her rare beauty that the vows he took 
by his father's death-bed were as dust in the bal- 
ance. 

It was in the cathedral of Boulogne the wedding 
took place on a late January day of 1308, the cere- 
mony, which was of unusual magnificence, being 
attended by four kings and three queens and a huge 
concourse of French and English nobles. Not until 
thirteen days later did the wedded pair set out for 

178 



The '^ She Wolf's " Cage 179 

England, the interval being spent in continuous 
feasting and revelry. Philip le Bel had been no 
niggard in equipping his daughter for her queenly 
state; she carried with her to her new home two 
richly-ornamented gold crowns, gold and silver plate 
in abundance, dresses of velvet and silver and gold 
warp and woof, rare furs, and costly tapestries for 
her chamber, and countless yards of linen. 

Ere departing to fetch his bride the young king 
had given orders for her worthy reception in his 
own capital. At the palace of Westminster the 
royal apartments were rebuilt and refurnished ; the 
king's ship was newly painted and fitted with hand- 
some cabins for Isabella's voyage; and elaborate 
preparations were in hand for the coronation of the 
happy couple. 

But destiny had ordained a swift over-clouding 
for this smiling picture. Edward II was in the toils 
of his infatuation for his favourite Piers de Gaves- 
ton; perhaps he had forgotten that worthless 
Gascon in the excitements of his bridal tour, but 
no sooner had he landed at Dover than his unnat- 
ural passion for that " lasci^aous minion " revived 
in all its force. Ignoring all the others of his court 
who had come to greet him, he sprang towards his 
favourite, hailed him as '' brother," and clasped 
him in his arms. And ere many days had fled the 
bridal presents of Isabella the Fair were trans- 
ferred to Gaveston's rapacious hands. The reader 



180 Royal Castles of England 

of history may marvel at that untoward fate which 
substituted " the She Wolf of France " for so en- 
gaging a nickname as " Isabella the Fair," but 
when he remembers how quickly Edward sacrificed 
his fealty as a husband to his passion for his favour- 
ite the mystery is explained. The poet Drayton, in 
the " heroical epistle " which he placed in Isa- 
bella's mouth, justifies as few historians do the 
transformation of her love into loathing. 

" Did Bulloin once a festival prepare 
For England, Almain, Sicil, and Navarre? 
When France envy'd those buildings (only blest) 
Grac'd with the orgies of my bridal feast, 
That English Edward should refuse my bed, 
For that lascivious, shameless Ganymede? 
And in my place, upon his regal throne, 
To set that girl-boy, wanton Gaveston? 
Betwixt the feature of my face and his. 
My glass assures me no such difference is, 
That a foul witch's bastard should thereby 
Be thought more worthy of his love than I." 

In an earlier chapter brief reference has already 
been made to the fact that Edward did not learn 
wisdom from the tragedy which overtook Gaveston 
and to his incredible folly in filling his place with 
another worthless favourite in the person of Hugh 
Despenser the younger. The old programme was 
repeated; no gifts were too large or costly for the 
favourite and his father; Edward neglected his 
queen for the company of his beloved Hugh; and 
once more she was made to realize how secondary 



The '' She Wolf's " Cage 181 

were her interests compared with those of the man 
whom her frivolous husband delighted to honour. 
These things are explanation enough of the trans- 
muting of love into hatred, of that change in char- 
acter represented by the coarse epithet of * ' the She 
Wolf of France." 

Not until it was too late did Edward realize the 
extent of his own shortcomings and the catastrophe 
he was preparing. A deep drinker, vulgar in his 
tastes and fond of low companions, his absorption 
in his own mean pleasures was so complete that he 
doubtless regarded himself as a model husband and 
was not conscious of the waning of his wife's love. 
He was living in that fool's paradise so late as the 
Christmas-tide of 1321, for to that season belongs 
the mandate he issued to the royal treasurer to pro- 
vide '' sixteen pieces of cloth for the apparelling 
of ourselves and our dear companion, also furs, 
against the next feast of Christmas, and thirteen 
pieces of cloth for corsets for our said companion 
and her damsels." But that is the last Cliristmas 
present from Edward to Isabella of which there is 
any record. 

In due course the Despensers so firmly consoli- 
dated their influence over the king that he followed 
their advice blindly. And when they, fearing Isa- 
bella was in league with their enemies, deemed it 
advisable to weaken her power, and counselled Ed- 
ward to deprive her of her estates and put her upon 



182 Royal Castles of England 

a beggarly allowance of a pound a day, their sug- 
gestion was immediately accepted. 

So utterly had Isabella's husband failed her. The 
man who should have given her love, whose duty 
it was to protect her, who should have stood by her 
side if all others in the world had fallen away, had 
come to this miserable pass that he treated his 
wedded wife, the daughter of a king, as a hired 
menial of his household. "What was the inevitable 
result ? Why, that some other man filled the vacant 
place in Isabella's heart. And a romantic story is 
sometimes told of how she became acquainted with 
that other man. As thus : At the time Isabella took 
up her residence in the Tower of London in antici- 
pation of the birth of her last child, there was con- 
fined in that fortress — so the story goes — a mas- 
terful noble named Eoger Mortimer, who had been 
imprisoned for taking arms against his king. ' ' The 
manner in which he contrived, while under sentence 
of death in one of the prison lodgings of the Tower 
of London, to create so powerful an interest in the 
heart of the beautiful consort of his offended sover- 
eign, is not related by any of the chroniclers of that 
reign." Such is the version of that somewhat 
hysterical biographer of the queens of England, 
Agnes Strickland. The lady's surprise at the omis- 
sion of the chroniclers admits an easy explanation ; 
Mortimer was not confined to the Tower until more 
than six months after Isabella's accouchment there. 



The ** She Wolf's " Cage 183 

In fact there is no evidence to show that intimate 
relations were established between Isabella and 
Mortimer until they were both exiles from England. 
On the other hand, the exciting story of how Mor- 
timer suborned the constable of the Tower, gave a 
feast to his gaolers, drugged their wine, and escaped 
while they slept, seems true in every particular. 

Biding her time with great patience, Isabella was 
at length rewarded with an opportunity to return to 
her native land. Owing to the accession of her 
brother Charles to the throne of France, it became 
necessary for Edward to perform homage to that 
king for Aquitaine, but Isabella persuaded her hus- 
band to send her instead. So, in March, 1325, she 
crossed to France. If her brother would have ac- 
cepted her substitutionary homage, she had no idea 
of performing that ceremony. Her plans had been 
matured; she would not return to England until 
she was able to revenge herself upon the Despensers 
and her husband alike. And fortune favoured her 
scheme. For when Charles insisted that Edward 
must perform his homage in person, or alternately 
should send his eldest son Edward as a substitute, 
the English king at once fell into the trap and 
agreed that the heir to his throne should join his 
mother in Paris. 

From the day of the young Edward's arrival, Isa- 
bella was master of the situation. And when month 
succeeded month without the return of his wife or 



184 Royal Castles of England 

son that hard truth dawned upon the English king 
himself. It is to this period belong those letters of 
Edward which present us with the unusual spectacle 
of a king deserted by his wife. Addressing himself 
to his '' very dear and beloved brother " the King 
of France, Edward expressed his astonishment that 
he had credited those who had informed him that 
his wife dared not return to her husband because 
of the peril she apprehended from Hugh Despenser. 
" Certes, dearest brother," he added, " it cannot 
be that she can have fear of him, or any other man 
in our realm; since, pur Dieu! if either Hugh or 
any other living being in our dominions would wish 
to do her ill, and it came to our knowledge, we 
would chastise him in a manner that should be an 
example to all others." Wlierefore the King of 
England implored his " dearest brother," for the 
honour of them both, that he would ' ' compel ' ' Isa- 
bella to return to her lord with all speed. To 
Isabella, whom he addressed as '* Lady," Edward 
wrote in much the same strain, charging her to 
cease from all '' pretences, delays, and false ex- 
cuses ' ' and hasten home with all speed. There was 
a note, too, for the young Edward; if his mother 
would not return, he was to come home alone, for 
his father had a great desire to see and speak with 
him. All these letters were written in the last 
month of 1325. 

Three months later King Edward was still sus- 



The '' She Wolf's " Cage 185 

taining the role of the deserted husband. And now 
he had a genuine grievance. For the ambitious 
Mortimer, making common cause against their 
mutual enemy, had by the spring of 1326 cast in 
his lot with that of Isabella. Nay, out of their 
hatred for the King of England had grown a more 
tender passion; in short, Mortimer had taken Ed- 
ward's place in the affections of his queen. News 
of this was not long in crossing the Channel ; that 
the English monarch was acquainted with his wife 's 
unfaithfulness when he wrote to his son in the 
month of March is obvious from his protest that his 
wife had '' attached to herself, and retains in her 
company, the Mortimer, our traitor and mortal 
foe." The liaison, in fact, was common knowledge 
in England ; wherever Isabella went, Mortimer was 
her constant companion. 

Once more the dishonoured Edward appealed to 
his ' ' dearest brother ' ' of France ; his wife did not 
love him as she " ought to love her lord; " he 
prayed him earnestly to attend to his *' supreme 
desire." To his son, too, the miserable king made 
yet another appeal; let him at least cease from all 
excuses and hasten home. 

Not until another six months had fled did either 
Isabella or the young Edward return. And then 
their home-coming was in such wise that it had been 
better for Edward II they had stayed away. For 
when Isabella sailed for England in September, 



186 



Royal Castles of England 



1326, she was accompanied not only by her son, and 
Mortimer, and other powerful nobles, but also by 
an army of foreign mercenaries. Hardly, too, had 
she landed than other lords with their followers 
hastened to her standard. And in less than a couple 
of months the two Despensers were captured and 
beheaded and Edward himself a prisoner in his 
wife's hands. Her proclamation that she had come 
to free the nation from the tyranny of the Despen- 
sers and restore justice in the land rallied all to her 
side. 

For nigh three years Isabella and Mortimer were 
supreme in England. Edward II was deposed and 
murdered; his son, although proclaimed king as 
Edward III, was but a cipher in the hands of his 
mother and her paramour. But at the end of three 
years there came a day of reckoning. Having 
reached his eighteenth year and taken to himself a 
wife, Edward III thought it time to assume the gov- 
ernment of the land. In this he had the encourage- 
ment of Lord Montacute, who suggested how he 
might throw off his bondage. 

A parliament was summoned at Nottingham, to 
which Isabella and Mortimer, now living openly to- 
gether, went, making their abode in the castle of 
that town. The governor was taken into the young 
king's confidence; he disclosed a secret entrance to 
the building unknown to Mortimer; and at mid- 
night the king and his followers were duly admitted 



The '* She Wolf's " Cage 187 

by that unsuspected passage. Making their way 
swiftly to Mortimer's apartment, there was a brief 
scuffle, a piteous plea from Isabella — '■ ^ Sweet son, 
fair son, spare my gentle Mortimer ! " — but in a 
few minutes the queen's lover was a prisoner. 

For Mortimer there was short shrift. A month 
later he was tried, condemned, hung at Tyburn, and 
drawn and quartered. The catalogue of his offences 
was so framed to hide Isabella's dishonour. 
Through the mediation of the Pope the partner of 
the executed noble was spared the indignity of a 
trial or the disclosure of her illicit love. But what 
was to be done with her? 

It is at this point of her career that the " She 
Wolf of France " becomes, in so many histories, the 
subject of harrowing legend. Froissart appears to 
have been the first to circulate idle tales of Isa- 
bella's deplorable fate. Edward, he wrote, com- 
manded that the queen his mother '' should be kept 
close in a castle, and so it was done; and she had 
with her ladies and damosels, knights and squires, 
to serve her acpording to her estate, and certain 
ladies assigned to her to maintain therewith her 
noble estate all the days of her life ; but in no wise 
she should not depart out of the castle, without it 
were to see such sports as was sometime showed 
before the castle gate for her recreation." A kin- 
dred picture of sombre hue is painted by Sir 
Richard Baker in that '' Chronicle of the Kings of 



188 Royal Castles of England 

England " so beloved by Sir Eoger de Coverley 
and other old-fasMoned squires. Isabella, he said, 
had all her jointure taken from her, and was put on 
a pension of a thousand pounds a year, ' ' and herself 
confined to a castle, where she remained the rest of 
her days, no fewer than thirty years. A time long 
enough to find that her being the Daughter of a 
King, the Sister of a King, the Wife of a King, and 
the Mother of a King, were glorious Titles, but all 
not worth the liberty of a mean Estate." More re- 
cent historians have written in a similar strain : Lin- 
gard asserts that Edward confined his mother " to 
the manor of Risings, where she passed in obscurity 
the remaining twenty-seven years of her life ; ' ' and 
Miss Strickland afiirms that at least during the first 
two years of her confinement Isabella's seclusion 
was '' most rigorous." We are assured, indeed, 
that while Mortimer 's body hung on the gallows she 
had a '' violent access of madness," that her 
" agonies " were severe, etc., etc. 

Now, the only grain of truth in all this is that 
Castle Eising, a historic stronghold near the ancient 
town of King's Lynn and not far from the Norfolk 
seacoast, was the chief home of the queen dowager. 
But, as a matter of fact, she did not become a resi- 
dent here until the end of 1331, more than a year 
after Mortimer's execution, and then it was as the 
owner of the castle, the life-interest of which she 
purchased from the widow of its previous owner. 



The " She Wolf's " Cage 189 

The records of the fourteenth century show that 
Isabella paid numerous visits to different parts of 
England; that she visited and was visited by her 
son the king; and that although she was prevented 
from interfering in the government of the country 
she was allowed a large amount of liberty to order 
her life as she pleased. When Mortimer was torn 
from her side she had nearly twenty-eight years of 
life in reserve, and of that period the bulk was spent 
in her Norfolk home. 

Castle Rising, then, became the cage of the ' * She 
.Wolf of France," but she lived there in a state 
hardly less regal than that she had enjoyed as queen 
of England. Her means were ample, her retinue 
large, and the corporation of the neighbouring town 
of King's Lynn was not unmindful of its loyal duty 
to the widow of the late king and the mother of the 
reigning sovereign. It is true there were occasions 
when the townfolk of Lynn came into collision with 
the queen's servants at Rising, but in the main, 
from the year when she took up her abode at the 
castle to the year of her death more than a quarter 
of a century later, the relations between the town 
and the ex-queen were exceedingly friendly. This 
is cogently illustrated by the Lynn records, which 
show how " Isabell the old Queen " was the recipi- 
ent of many presents from the corporation. The 
list includes bread, and oats, casks of wine, swans, 
flesh-meats, barrels of sturgeon, herrings, and now 



190 



Royal Castles of England 



and then some undefined '* tribute." There were 
offerings, too, for Isabella's servants, such as fal- 
cons for her steward and " two tartelettes " for a 
more menial retainer. It is sometimes stated that 
Edward III visited his mother at Castle Eising 
soon after she established her household there, but 
the Lynn records date his '' first coming to Ey- 
syng " some thirteen years later than that event. 

Of the castle, once a large and imposing pile con- 
sisting of towers and chapels and halls and galler- 
ies and out-buildings, little remains save the mas- 
sive Norman keep erected towards the end of the 
twelfth century. In that keep it is still possible to 
trace the chief outlines of the great hall in which 
Isabella held her court and received her famous 
son, an apartment which even in decay is a potent 
aid to the imagination in re-picturing the glories 
of feudal magnificence. And the interest of a visit 
to this now desolate ruin is heightened by remem- 
bering that the lords of Castle Eising have included 
Odo of Bayeux, and that William d'Albini, who 
married the widow of Henry I. 

A fourteenth-century heir of d'Albini, one Rob- 
ert de Monthaut, was not so fortunate as Isabella 
in his relations with his neighbours of King's Lynn. 
As the owner of Castle Eising the tolls of Lynn were 
a part of his income, but the townfolk became so 
enraged against paying him tribute that in 1313, 
on a day when Eobert de Monthaut and his servants 




THE TOWER STAIRS, CASTLE RISING. 



The ** She Wolf's " Cage 191 

were in Lynn to collect taxes, they rose in rebellion, 
chased De Monthaut to his house, besieged him 
there, battered down his doors, took him and his 
men prisoners, and finally made their over-lord 
promise that he would not collect any more dues for 
twenty years. For sequel De Monthaut brought an 
action against the corporation, in which he was 
awarded four thousand pounds damages. From 
that date the records of Lynn show how year after 
year the corporation struggled with the debt that 
had been incurred by the fatal policy of trying to 
over-ride the law. Although the town was heavily 
taxed to raise the instalments due to the lord of 
Castle Eising the sums realized were often so small 
that many years elapsed ere the full damages were 
paid. In fact, the good burghers of Lynn had ample 
time in which ruefully to reflect that they were less 
fortunate in engineering a rebellion than the " She 
Wolf of France." 



CHAPTER III^ 

THE CASTLE OF '' PRINCELY PLEASURES " 
KENILWORTH CASTLE 

Thanks to the magic of Sir Walter Scott's pen, 
there is no castle in all England which has a more 
world-wide fame than that of Kenilworth. Yet it 
was not the author's wish that the novel of '' Ken- 
ilworth " should take its title from the name of the 
castle. As he derived the inspiration of his story 
from Mickle's pathetic ballad of " Cumnor Hall," 
he was inclined to christen his romance by the same 
name, but one of his publishers urged him to change 
the title to ' ' Kenilworth, ' ' and the substitution was 
agreed to by Scott despite the warning of another 
adviser to the eifect that the result would prove 
'' something worthy of the kennel." That kind 
prophecy did not come true ; among all the Waver- 
ley novels not one has been or is so much a favourite 
as ^' Kenilworth; " and to this day that romance 
is the chief cause why the picturesque ruinb of Lord 
Leicester's Warwickshire castle are sought out by 
so many thousands of pilgrims. 

Seeing how great is our debt to Scott for the 
glowing picture he has given us of the most notable 
event in the history of Kenilworth Castle it may 

192 



/ 



Castle of " Princely Pleasures " 193 

seem ungracious to recall the fact that in penning 
his romance of Leicester and Amy Robsart and 
Queen Elizabeth he, as usual, set small store by his- 
tory or chronology. The result is disastrous in the 
case of those visitors who accept Scott's romance 
for history; they pester the caretaker to point out 
those parts of the castle associated with the tragedy 
of Amy Eobsart and even bring to the building a 
greater store of legend than Scott himself created. 
There is, however, so much of interest attaching to 
this imposing ruin that it will do no harm to winnow 
fact from fancy. 

What has to be remembered, then, is that at the 
date of Queen Elizabeth's famous visit to Kenil- 
worth Amy Robsart had been in her grave nearly 
fifteen years, and that her strange death did not 
take place here but at Cumnor Hall. It is a mistake, 
too, to speak of her as the Countess Leicester, for 
her husband, Robert Dudley, was not created Earl 
of Leicester until four years after his wife's death. 
And, finally, the castle and manor of Kenilworth 
were not presented to Dudley until 1563, three years 
subsequent to Amy Robsart 's suicide or murder. 
Such are the stubborn facts which Scott ignored for 
the sake of dramatic effect. 

But the subtraction of imagination from truth 
does little to impoverish the annals of Kenilworth. 
The apostrophe of the poet may be adopted without 
reserve : 



194 Royal Castles of England 

" Illustrious ruin! hoary Kenil worth! 
Thou hast outlived the customs of thy day; 
And, in the imbecility of age, 
Art now the spectacle of modern times. 
Yet though thy halls are silent, though thy bowers 
Re-echo back the traveller's lonely tread, 
Again imagination bids thee rise 
In all thy dread magnificence and strength; 
Thy draw-bridge, foss, and frowning battlements 
Portcullis, barbican, and donjon-tower." 

Many pens have laboured to describe tlie varied 
beauties and singular fascinations of this famous 
ruin, but for quaint and picturesque phrase nothing 
can compare with the exordium of that lively letter 
in which Eobert Laneham narrated for the benefit 
of a friend in London the rare doings of the sum- 
mer of 1575. He told how the air round the castle 
was ^'^ sweet and wholesome," how it was set '' as 
it were in the navel of England, ' ' how the landscape 
was diversified by dale and hill and ' ' sweet springs 
bursting forth, ' ' and how it was ' ' so plentifully well 
sorted on every side into arable, meadow, pasture, 
wood, water, as it appears to have need of nothing 
that may pertain to living or pleasure." The im- 
mediate grounds of the castle included " a fair 
park " full of *' red deer and other stately game 
for hunting; " there was a '' goodly pool of rare 
breadth, length, depth, and store of all kinds of fresh 
water fish, delicate, great, and fat, and also of wild 
fowl besides ; ' ' while the whole was ' ' beautified 
with many delectable, fresh, and umbrageous bow- 



Castle of '* Princely Pleasures " 195 

ers, arbours, seats, and walks, that with great art^ 
cost, and diligence were very pleasantly appointed. ' ' 
In fact, such was the natural grace of the tall and 
fresh fragrant trees that Diana herself " might 
have deigned there well enough to range for her 
pastime." Briefer but kindred in spirit was Cam- 
den's eulogy of this " most noble, beautiful, and 
strong castle," which, he added, might justly claim 
a second place among the stateliest castles of the 
land. 

Long before the days of the Virgin Queen the 
castle of Kenilworth had gathered to itself a gener- 
ous harvest of royal associations. An annalist of 
Warwickshire has told how in 1266 Kenilworth was 
besieged by Henry III, how in 1279 it was the scene 
of a gallant and costly tournament in which a hun- 
dred knights took part, how in 1414 Henry V kept 
his Lent here, and how in 1436 Henry VI made his 
Christmas feast within these walls. It was here, 
too, that Edward II began that imprisonment which 
ended only with his death. 

Though the records of the tournament of 1279 are 
meagre compared with those of Leicester's enter- 
tainment of 1575, they are sufficient to indicate what 
great expense and care were bestowed upon the dis- 
play. The moving spirit was Roger Mortimer, 
Baron of Wigmore, who had bravely served his king 
on many a stricken field but who now, in his fiftieth 
year, thought it time to bid farewell to all martial 



196 Royal Castles of England 

exploits. As noted above, his guests included a 
hundred knights and as many ladies, whom he en- 
tertained sumptuously for three days with tilting 
and banquetting and music and the dance. An old 
chronicle gives us a momentary glimpse of that 
baronial fete, noting specially the '^ rich silken 
mantles " of the ladies and how their knights 
jousted with each other in chivalrous rivalry. 

According to the testimony of Stow, Henry V's 
Lenten exercises at Kenilworth in 1414 were not 
wholly of a religious nature. He caused, says Stow, 
a ' ' harbour to be planted in the marsh for his pleas- 
ure, among the thorns and bushes, where a fox had 
harboured, which fox he killed, being a thing 
thought to prognosticate that he should expel the 
crafty deceit of the French king; besides which he 
also there builded a most pleasant place, and caused 
it to be named Me Plaisant Marais,' or * The 
Pleasant Marsh.' " Another tradition affirms that 
it was while Henry was at Kenilworth he received 
from the French Dauphin that insulting present of 
a barrel of tennis-balls with a message that they 
were the most fit playthings for him and his young 
men. Henry replied that he would soon send the 
French balls which should make their cities and 
strong towers tremble, a promise which the warrior 
king amply redeemed at the battle of Agincourt. 

But to the reader of '* Kenilworth " all these 
incidents have a far slighter interest than the story 



Castle of ** Princely Pleasures ** 197 

of those seventeen days in the July of 1575 when 
the Earl of Leicester entertained Queen Elizabeth 
with such prodigious splendour. It is sometimes 
forgotten, however, that that was not the Virgin 
Queen's first visit to Kenilworth. Twice before had 
she been the guest of her favourite, once in the 
August of 1565 and again in the same month of 1572. 
As the first of those visits took place only two years 
after the queen had presented the castle to the earl 
he had had but little time in which to prepare for his 
distinguished visitor, but even in 1572, when he had 
no doubt completed many of his new buildings, his 
hospitality seems to have been planned on a modest 
scale. Perhaps he had ampler notice of the visit 
of 1575, and so had opportunity to make thorough 
preparations. 

Certainly his preparations were unprecedented 
for their variety, ingenuity, and magnificence. If 
it were possible to credit the Earl of Leicester with 
having devised the entertainment himself, then he 
would deserve more fame as an organizer of specta- 
cles than as a queen's favourite. No doubt he made 
some suggestions, but the entire scheme of the 
** Princely Pleasures " of Kenilworth suggests that 
it was the result of the anxious thought of many 
brains. It amazed the vivacious Laneham. He had 
travelled, he said, in many lands, but for persons, 
place, time, cost, devices, and abundance he had seen 
nothing so memorable anywhere. 



Royal Castles of England 

Elizabeth was met by her host at Long Ichington, 
a little town some seven miles from Kenilworth, en- 
tertaining her to dinner there in a tent of such 
'' large and goodly room " that the posts alone 
filled no fewer than seven carts. To amuse the 
queen after her repast two prodigies were produced, 
one being a fat boy who had the bulk and height of 
a young man of eighteen years although he had not 
completed his fifth summer, and the other a sheep 
of monstrous size. Then the royal party set out on 
a hunt, but the chase took them so far afield that 
it- was not until eight o'clock on that Saturday eve- 
ning, the ninth of July, when the sun was near set- 
ting, that Kenilworth was reached. 

Hardly had the queen entered the park of the 
castle than, from an arbour near the highway, there 
stepped forward a graceful maiden attired in white 
silk, who, as one of the Sibyls, greeted the illustri- 
ous guest with rhymes of welcome and prophecy. 



" You shall be caUed the Prince of Peace, 

And peace shall be your shield, 
So that your eyes shall never see 

The broils of bloody field. 
If perfect peace then glad yom" mind, 

He joys above the rest 
Which doth receive into his house 

So good and sweet a guest. 
And one thing more I shaU foreteH," 

As by my skill I know, 
Your coming is rejoiced at 

Ten thousand times and mo. 



Castle of '* Princely Pleasures " 199 

And while your Highness here abides, 

Nothing shall rest unsought, 
That may bring pleasiu-e to your mind, 

Or quiet to your thought. 
And so pass forth in peace, Prinee 

Of high and worthy praise: 
The God that governs all in all, 

Increase your happy daysl " 



Eesuming her progress to the castle, the queen, 
on passing the first gate into the tilt-yard, was 
brought to a halt once more by the protests of a stal- 
wart porter who, clad in silk, and bearing a huge 
club in one hand and a bunch of keys in the other, 
fumed and stormed at this unseemly invasion of his 
domain. Such a riding to and fro, such shouting, 
such commotion he would not endure '' while club 
and limbs do last." But as he caught sight of the 
queen anger gave place to amazement : 



" What dainty darling's here? 

Oh God! a peerless Pearl! 
No worldly wight, no doubt; 

Some sovereign Goddess sure I 
Even face, even hand, even eye, 

Even other features all. 
Yea beauty, grace, and cheer. 

Yea port and majesty, 
Show all some heavenly peer, 

With virtues all beset. 
Come, come, most perfect Paragon; 

Pass on with joy and bliss: 
Most worthy welcome Goddess guest. 

Whose presence gladdeth all. 



200 Royal Castles of England 

Have here, have here, both club and keys; 

Myself my ward I yield; 
Even gates and all, yea Lord himself, 

Submit and seek your shield." 

Although made free of the castle in such a gener- 
ous fashion, Elizabeth was not allowed to " pass 
on " very far. No sooner had the six trumpeters, 
each ensconced in a pasteboard figure to make him 
of giant size, emphasized the porter's welcome by 
a musical blast on their tapering silver trumpets, 
than, over the waters of the lake, there floated 
towards the queen a '^ movable island, bright bla- 
zing with torches," on which stood the Lady of the 
Lake, another radiant maiden who, also in verse, 
implored her highness to listen to the ancient story 
of the castle she was gracing with her presence. 
Although doubtless weary with her day's ride and 
hunting, Elizabeth again drew rein. This time her 
patience was not greatly taxed, for the Lady of the 
Lake soon exhausted her seven stanzas with the 
couplet : 

" Pass on, Madame, you need no longer stand; 
The Lake, the Lodge, the Lord, are yours to command." 

At this point the royal guest reached the tem- 
porary bridge that led to the inner ward of the 
castle, a structure some twenty feet in width and 
seventy feet in length. This was the climax of her 
picturesque welcome. At intervals of twelve feet 
the sides of the bridge were adorned with massive 



Castle of *' Princely Pleasures " 201 

posts in pairs, and an expositor, clad like a poet ' ' in 
a long azure-blue garment," explained in Latin 
verse the symbolism of those seven pairs of posts.. 
On the tops of the first pair were large wire cages 
filled with live bitterns and curlews and other dainty- 
birds, and these were the offerings of Sylvanus the 
god of fowls; the second posts bore on their sum- 
mits large silver bowls filled with apples, pears, 
cherries, filberts, oranges, and lemons, and these' 
were the gifts of Pomona the goddess of fruit; on 
the third posts were other large silver bowls deco- 
rated with green and ripe ears of wheat, barley, 
oats, and beans, and these were the libation of 
Ceres the goddess of corn; on one of the fourth 
pair of posts a silvered bowl held luscious grapes 
in clusters white and red, while the companion pil- 
lar had by its side two silver pots of wine and two 
glasses filled to the brim with the red and white 
juice of the grape, and these were the oblation of 
Bacchus the god of wine ; the fifth posts supported 
large trays in which, on a bed of fresh grass, were 
displayed all kinds of fish, and these were the of- 
fertory of Neptune god of the sea; the sixth posts 
were adorned with staves of silver, representing 
the rugged staff of Leicester's coat of arms, from 
which hung glittering pieces of armour and various 
weapons, and these were the gifts of Mars the god 
of war; to the seventh posts were affixed branches 
of bay, thickly arrayed with lutes, and viols, and 



202 



Royal Castles of England 



cornets, and flutes, and harps, and these were the 
oblation of Phoebus the god of music *' for rejoicing 
the mind." As she reached the end of the bridge 
the much-welcomed monarch was saluted with a 
*' delicate harmony " of music, to the accompani- 
ment of which she dismounted and was conducted 
to her apartments. And as she reached her cham- 
ber there came so loud a peal of guns and such a 
blaze of fireworks that, as Laneham noted, it seemed 
as though Jupiter must add his greeting to the salu- 
tations of the other gods. 

Such was the overture of the '' Princely Pleas- 
ures " devised for Elizabeth's entertainment dur- 
ing those July days of 1575. To follow the pro- 
gramme in all its details for the seventeen days of 
the queen's visit would need a volume; to quote 
even a tithe of the flattering conceits in prose and 
verse that saluted the guest's ears wherever she 
moved, whether in the castle or its gardens or while 
following the hunt, would be tedious for those not 
accustomed to the fulsomeness of Elizabethan con- 
pliment. Save on the days when it was too hot for 
her to stir abroad until the cool of the afternoon, or 
during the mornings of those two Sundays which 
were given up to '^ divine service and preaching,** 
Elizabeth had little opportunity to enjoy that quiet 
which the Sibyl had promised. If she went hunting 
she was waylaid by a '' Savage man " representing 
Sylvanus, the god of the woods, who, clad in moss 



Castle of ** Princely Pleasures " 203 

and ivy, persisted in addressing her in a long ora- 
tion, running after her horse at top speed when his 
victim made an effort to escape his tedious elo- 
quence ; if she but walked out to the bridge a barge- 
load of singers making '' delectable music " floated 
towards her; if she wandered to the further shore 
of the lake a swimming mermaid implored the hon- 
our of taking her a voyage. All Kenilworth, indeed, 
•seemed to be infested with satyrs and heathen gods 
and goddesses, and no matter which way Elizabeth 
turned there were surprises in store, Italian tum- 
blers and dancers, bridal ceremonies, morris play- 
ers, bear-baiting, tilts, prize-fights, and dazzling dis- 
plays of fireworks. And day by day, through all 
the hours of each day, the tables were loaded with 
the costliest wines and viands, a provision which 
helps to explain why that high festival cost the host 
a thousand pounds a day. 

In compliment to the royal guest, as though hint- 
ing that time itself stood still for her, the clock- 
bell of the castle was " commanded to silence " on 
her arrival and '' sang not a note all the while her 
Highness was there." To heighten that conceit, 
too, the hands of the clock were halted and fixed at 
the hour of two, implying, as that was the time of 
the chief meal of the day, that there was bounteous 
store of refreshment for all comers at any moment. 
But those who had a thought and a glance to spare 
had only to gaze upward at the south wall of 



204 Royal Castles of England 

Caesar 's Tower to be reminded that notwithstanding 
the silent bell and the stationary hands of the clock 
the hours of those refulgent days were being ruth- 
lessly added to the irreparable past. For high up 
on that tower, nigh to the battlements, there shone 
the enamelled face of a sun-dial, over the golden 
figures of which glided steadily on that slender 
shadow which was ushering the " Princely Pleas- 
ures " of Kenilworth to oblivion. 



CHAPTER IV 

** SHRIEKS OF AN AGONIZING KING " 
BERKELEY CASTLE 

Unlike so many of the ancient castles of Eng- 
land, which in the majority of cases are mere roof- 
less walls given over to the dominion of owls and 
bats, Berkeley Castle is still a perfect and inhabited 
home. More than seven centuries have gone by 
since it became the chief seat of the Fitzhardinge 
family, yet when viewed from a distance sufficiently 
remote to soften the details of modern additions the 
aspect of this romantic building is such that the ob- 
server might imagine himself transported to feudal 
times. Standing majestically on rising ground amid 
the verdant spaces of the Gloucestershire landscape, 
embedded in such a nature setting as gives no hint 
of the chronology of time, Berkeley Castle is in fact 
almost unique for the picture it gives of an old-time 
baronial home. 

Nor is that impression much weakened by a stroll 
through its ancient hall and other state apartments. 
Of course many alterations have been made in ac- 
cordance with modern ideas of domestic comfort, 
but these are in the main so unobtrusive that they 
do little to dispel that sensation of mediaeval envir- 
onment created by a distant view of the castle; 

205 



206 Royal Castles of England 

were they more pronounced than they are their ef- 
fect would still be nullified by the many antique ob- 
jects scattered through the building. It is true the 
fastidious Horace Walpole was somewhat disap- 
pointed with his visit to Berkeley a century and a 
half ago, but as on his own confession he '' hurried 
through the chambers, and looked for nothing but 
the way out of every room," it would be absurd to 
accept him as an authority. He seems, however, to 
have been satisfied with the room shown as that in 
which the murder of Edward II was committed, 
though he boggled at the supposed death-mask of 
that king and voted it a representation of Charles I. 
That guess was wrong by one remove ; according to 
the best authority the plaster in question is an 
image of Charles II. 

Apparently Walpole was not shown or was in too 
much of a hurry to observe that ancient oak bed- 
stead which used to be exhibited as the identical 
piece of furniture on which Edward II was so bar- 
barously done to death ; nor does he make any men- 
tion of the toilet service used by Queen Elizabeth, 
or the bed slept on by James I, or of that suite of 
inlaid furniture which accompanied Sir Francis 
Drake on his voyage round the world. He did catch 
a glimpse of some of the family portraits, only, 
however, to receive an impression which made him 
far from complimentary in his remarks on their ar- 
tistic qualities. 



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*' Shrieks of an Agonizing King" 207 

Now there was one of those portraits at least 
which deserved more careful attention; a portrait 
of a nephew of an Earl Godwin attired in a relig- 
ious habit. Had Walpole observed that painting 
and enquired as to its history, he would have been 
entertained by a legend which would have tickled 
his fancy. For that curious picture is founded 
upon one of the delectable stories told in the 
'* Courtiers' Triflings," that gossipy book of anec- 
dote written in the twelfth century by the jovial 
Walter Mapes. As the sedate Camden deemed it 
*' not unworthy " of his readers' perusal, Mapes 
may be allowed to repeat the legend in his own 
words. '' Berkeley is a village near Severn, in 
which was a nunnery governed by an abbess that 
was both noble and beautiful. Earl Godwin, a not- 
able subtle man, not desiring her but hers, as he 
passed by left his nephew, a young, proper, hand- 
some spark (under pretence of being seized with a 
sickness) till he should return back thither, and in- 
structed him to counterfeit an indisposition till he 
had got all who came to visit him, both abbess and 
as many of the nuns as he could, with child. And, 
to carry on the intrigue more plausibly, and more 
effectually to obtain the favour of their visits, the 
earl furnished him with rings and girdles, that by 
those presents he might the more readily corrupt 
and gain their inclinations. There needed no great 
entreaty to persuade this young gallant to under- 



208 Royal Castles of England 

take an employment so amorous and pleasing. The 
way to destruction is easy and quickly learnt; he 
seemed wonderful cunning to himself, but all his 
cunning was but folly. In him were concentred all 
those accomplishments that might captivate foolish 
and unthinking virgins — beauty, wit, riches, and 
obliging mien; and he was mighty solicitous to 
have a private apartment to himself. The devil 
therefore expelled Pallas and brought in Venus, 
and converted the church of our Saviour and his 
Saints into an accursed pantheon, the temple into 
a stew, and the lambs into wolves. When many of 
them proved with child, and the youth began to 
languish, being overcome with excess and variety 
of pleasure, he hastened home with the reports of 
his conquests. The earl immediately addresses the 
king, and acquaints him that the abbess and the 
nuns were gotten with child, and had rendered 
themselves prostitutes to all comers: all which, 
upon inquisition, was found true. Upon the expul- 
sion of the nuns, he begs Berkeley, and had it 
granted to him by the king." Such is the story by 
which Mapes explained how a nunnery gave place 
to a castle — a story which savours of Boccaccio, 
and might be used to convict both him and Anatole 
France of plagiarism. 

If Earl Godwin did obtain possession of the site 
of Berkeley Castle by that ingenious stratagem, it 
was not his family but another that enjoyed the 



*' Shrieks of an Agonizing King " 209 

benefit. And so far as the present castle is con- 
cerned its oldest portions do not date further back 
than the first half of the twelfth century. It would 
appear, too, that the manor of Berkeley was pre- 
sented to Kobert Fitzhardinge by Henry II in re- 
ward for the ^' great substance of gods " which the 
said Robert had contributed towards the expenses 
of that king's warlike expeditions. 

Seven barons of Berkeley had run their course 
ere there succeeded to the title that Thomas de 
Berkeley who was the owner of the castle at the time 
when it became the scene of the most tragic episode 
of its history. During the interval several kings 
had visited the stronghold, Henry I in 1121, John 
in 1216, and Henry III in 1255. At the time when 
so many of the barons revolted against Edward II 
and his favourites the Despensers, the lord of 
Berkeley, Maurice by name, having married a 
daughter of the Mortimer family, took arms against 
his king, but was captured and committed to prison, 
where he died in 1326, his manor and castle being 
presented by Edward to the younger Despenser. 
Maurice's heir, too, Thomas de Berkeley, a young 
man of some twenty summers, was also imprisoned 
in Pevensey Castle. It was at this crisis in the 
fortunes of the family that, as related in a previous 
chapter, Isabella landed in England with Mortimer 
and her foreign army. 

One of the results of Isabella's rebellion against 



:^10 Royal Castles of England 

her husband was the immediate release of Thomas 
de Berkeley and his restoration to his castle. And 
shortly thereafter he was called npon to demon- 
strate his gratitude for his release. 

Edward must have realized that his situation was 
hopeless even before Isabella's arrival. All his ef- 
forts to gather an army had failed; the citizens of 
London turned a deaf ear to his appeals for help, 
and many of his followers deserted him. Hence as 
soon as his queen reached England he fled west- 
ward, only to become her captive ere two months 
had passed. For a time he was imprisoned in Ken- 
ilworth, to be removed in the Spring of 1327 and 
transferred to castle after castle as soon as the 
secret of his whereabouts was disclosed. At last 
he was taken to Bristol, but on it being rumoured 
that a plot had been formed for his release it was 
decided to conduct him to Berkeley Castle. ^' They 
brought him to Berkeley in the night," says an old 
historian; '' made him ride in thin cloathing, with 
his head uncovered; would not let him sleep, nor 
have what food he liked; contradicted every word 
he said ; accused him of being mad ; and in short did 
everything they could to kill him, without direct vio- 
lence, by cold, waking, and misery. In riding to 
Berkeley through the granges of the Castle of Bris- 
tol, Gurney put a crown of hay upon his head, the 
soldiers in mockery crying, ' Fare forth Sir King I * 
Lest any of his friends should recognize and rescue 



** Shrieks of an Agonizing King " 211 

him, they resolved to disguise him, by cutting off his 
hair and beard. Accordingly, seating him upon a 
mole-hill, they took cold water from a ditch and 
shaved him. He burst into tears. ' ' 

Notwithstanding this it is affirmed that Isabella 
reproved her husband's guards for their too mild 
treatment! Thomas of Berkeley, indeed, appears 
to have been a humane jailor; although he was al- 
lowed but a modest daily sum for his prisoner's 
maintenance, he seems to have treated him well so 
long as he was master in his own castle. There 
came a time, however, in the late summer of 1327, 
when Isabella and Mortimer decided that their hold 
on the government of the kingdom was too precari- 
ous to allow Edward to live. So the lord of Berke- 
ley was commanded to deliver up the custody of his 
castle to Thomas de Gournay and John Maltravers, 
who speedily applied more stringent measures of 
dealing with the royal prisoner. The room beneath 
his dungeon was filled with putrid carcases in the 
hope that he would contract some pestilential and 
fatal disease; when that failed it was resolved to 
end his life by a method which is unique in the an- 
nals of fiendish brutality. On the night of the 
twenty-first of September he was surprised in his 
sleep, smothered with heavy beds, and, while so held, 
was infamously murdered by a hot iron being thrust 
into his bowels. Legend tells that his fearful cries 
of anguish resounded throughout the castle, a tra- 



212 



Royal Castles of England 



dition whicli was in the mind of the poet Gray when 
he wrote : 



" Weave the warp, and weave the woof, 
The winding-sheet of Edward's race. 

Give ample room, and verge enough 
The characters of hell to trace. 
Mark the year, and mark the night, 
When Severn shall re-echo with affright 
The shrieks of death, thro' Berkeley's roof that ring, 
Shrieks of an agonizing king! 

She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs, 
That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate." 

Judging from those lines, Gray had no doubt of 
the share of Isabella in the inhuman murder of her 
husband, but the only person who eventually suf- 
fered death for that diabolical crime was her para- 
mour Mortimer. An apology for a trial was, it is 
true, held soon after the event, at which the lord 
of Berkeley was charged as the chief culprit, but it 
ended in verdict of mere ' ' negligence ! ' ' Nay, 
within a year Isabella and Mortimer had the hardi- 
hood to visit the very castle where their victim had 
met his terrible doom, while shortly after the young 
Edward III duly confirmed Thomas of Berkeley in 
all his possessions and granted him several new 
privileges. 

Whatever his responsibility for that harrowing 
tragedy which casts so sombre a shadow over the 
annals of his castle, Thomas of Berkeley lived long 
and prospered. Several important embassies were 



** Shrieks of an Agonizing King '* 213 

entrusted to his charge, and he was a prominent 
commander in that army which achieved so signal 
a victory at Crecy. His more domestic years were 
spent at Berkeley in great splendour, for his per- 
sonal attendants included a dozen knights, who each 
had two servants and a page, and twenty-four 
esquires, who had two menials apiece. The house- 
hold at Berkeley was so numerous, amounting to 
three hundred people, that the castle in those days 
must have presented the appearance of a royal 
court. All the retainers had their specific livery, 
the knights being attired in robes of scarlet edged 
with miniver fur, the esquires in ray cloth furred, 
and the under-servants in cloth trimmed with cony 
or lambskin. In keeping with all this it is not sur- 
prising to learn that there were always a hundred 
horses in the stables at Berkeley; that the hus- 
bandry of the lord was on an immense scale; that 
he was, like all his race, a mighty hunter ; and that 
he made important additions to his castle buildings. 
From his orchards, and the adjacent River Severn, 
and from his well-stocked parks, presents of fruit 
and fish and game were frequently dispatched, now 
a dish of pears, anon a porpoise, and again a buck. 
On one of his journeys this Thomas of Berkeley took 
with him no fewer than nine lamprey pies for gifts 
to important persons. It is of the period of this 
lord we learn that when a baron's letter was read 
* ' the comrrions present would move their bonnets in 



214 



Royal Castles of England 



token of reverence " for the writer's name and per- 
son. 

So keen a hunter was that Thomas of Berkeley 
that when following the fox he would lie the night 
long in fields or woods, a passion for sport which 
was still more highly developed in one of his de- 
scendants of the sixteenth century. This lord, 
Henry of Berkeley, was so determined to have the 
best hawks in England that he often sent one of his 
servants to purchase the finest on the continent and 
always kept a man in London to secure him the first 
choice of all birds offered there. So highly, too, did 
he esteem those who were connected with his sport 
that while he gave his steward authority to dismiss 
all other servants he specially excepted his hunts- 
men and falconers. 

In all the records of those far-off years it is but 
rarely the lady of the castle makes any definite fig- 
ure. What was true of one, that in the forty years 
of her wedded life she never travelled more than 
ten miles from home, could doubtless have been 
chronicled of many. But an exception must be made 
in favour of that Lady Anne Berkeley whose lot was 
cast in the days of Henry VIII. She at least was 
more than a lay figure in her lord's household, for 
it is recorded of her that in winter and summer 
alike she rose early to make a tour of the stables, 
barns, dairies, poultry-yards, and the like. All her 
efforts to inspire her daughter-in-law with like 



*' Shrieks of an Agonizing King " 215 

energy were such a dismal failure that she would 
ejaculate: " By God's blessed sacrament, this gay 
girl will beggar my son! " 

It appears that this industrious lady had been 
commended to the lord of Berkeley by Henry VIII 
and Anne Boleyn, and when she was early left a 
widow the king of many marriages seems to have 
suggested a second match for her in the person of 
a poor nobleman named John, Lord Dudley. That 
impecunious peer, alive to the advantages of such a 
wealthy match, addressed himself to the wooing of 
the widow with alacrity. And at first the Lady Anne 
entertained him " after the most loving sort," for 
— he tells the story himself — ' ' when she was in 
her chamber sewing, she would suffer me to lie in 
her lap, with many other as familiar fashions as I 
could desire. ' ' As soon, however, as she learned my 
Lord John was a serious wooer, backed with the 
recommendation of the king and the Lord Cromwell, 
the widow became coy and indifferent. She made 
me a " very light answer," so the Lord John re- 
ported, '' that she is not minded to marry." But 
the Lady Anne was in earnest in that answer; 
alarmed lest she might be forced into a union with 
so impoverished a peer she addressed herself to 
Cromwell to assure him that she could not with her 
heart ** bear fair " to her suitor to '' accomplish his 
high desire." In fact, she was not minded to marry 
at all ; * ' my stomach cannot lean there, ' ' she added, 



216 Royal Castles of England 

'' neither as yet to any marriage." Nor did she 
ever change her opinion; apparently she was more 
content to remain the widow of the lord of Berkeley 
than to become the wife of any other noble. 

It was her son Henry whose wife was such a 
* ' gay girl ' ' and who was lord of the castle when it 
was visited by Queen Elizabeth in 1572. He it was, 
too, who was so proud of his hawks and such a keen 
devotee of the chase. One can understand, then, his 
indignation at an incident of Elizabeth's visit. Pre- 
tending some claim to a part of the Berkeley estates, 
the Earl of Leicester, imagining himself a privi- 
leged person, collected a mob of his followers and 
broke down the pales of one of the parks. Nor was 
that all. In the absence of the lord of the castle, 
Elizabeth's visit being apparently unexpected, her 
retinue invited themselves to a hunt of Lord 
Henry's herd of red deer, and '' such slaughter was 
made as twenty-seven stags were slain in the toils 
on one day, and many others on that and the next 
stolen and havocked." 

No wonder the lord of the castle protested and 
disparked his ground. News of what he had done 
soon reached Elizabeth's ears, who caused him to 
be informed how displeased she was at the um- 
brage he had taken at the '* good sport " she had 
enjoyed in his park, and concluded her message with 
a significant hint that my Lord of Leicester had 
taken " no small liking " to the manor of Berkeley. 



*' Shrieks of an Agonizing King " 217 

Other notable visitors to the scene of Edward II 's 
murder included James I, attracted thither perhaps 
by the excellence of the hunting; and George IV 
and Edward VII. Here, then, is a castle which links 
the kings of England together from the twelfth to 
the twentieth century, a record hardly less unique 
than that this romantic building has for so many 
centuries been the home of the Fitzhardinge race. 
A seventeenth-century historian of the family enter- 
tained the opinion that as the castle stands on the 
site of a nunnery it would, because on holy ground, 
continue happily in the Fitzhardinge possession, 
and thus far that historian has proved a singularly 
accurate prophet. 



CHAPTER V 

A NURSERY OF KINGS 
LUDLOW CASTLE 

With the exceptions of Windsor Castle and the 
Tower of London, there is no mediaeval fortress 
which has so intimate a connection with the royal 
lineage of England as the castle of Ludlow. The 
name of that Shropshire town might have been 
chosen in prophetic anticipation of that fact, for 
Camden assures us that the Welsh name of Ludlow 
means '' the Prince's Palace." It may be hoped 
that the antiquary was more correct in that piece 
of etymology than in his other assertion that Lud- 
low is a " town of greater beauty than antiquity.'* 
It is something to find the topographer paying his 
tribute to the rare charm of that border town ; why 
he should cast a slur on its antiquity must puzzle 
any one acquainted with its lengthy history. 

To justify the description of Ludlow Castle as a 
nursery of kings is not a difficult task, for many of 
the boyhood years of three heirs to the English 
throne were spent within its walls, while a fourth 
but female sovereign lived here for about a year and 
a half in her maidenhood. Notwithstanding those 
associations, however, and despite the further fact 
that the castle is rich in other historical and literary 

218 



A Nursery of Kings 219 

memories, the building is little known to either the 
tourist or the average Englishman. Lying off the 
beaten track, this countryside of the Welsh border- 
land only needs its poet or novelist to make it the 
rival of the most popular districts of England. For 
than the hills and dales around Ludlow, with their 
ancient villages and towns, their sites of battle- 
fields and religious foundations, their castles and 
manor houses, there is no equal area of John Bull's 
island so rich in object lessons of the romantic past. 
Nature, too, has been lavish of her charms. Here 
are meandering lanes fringed by luscious hedgerows 
and sentinelled by clumps of bosky trees, unhurry- 
ing water-courses bordered of reed and willow ma- 
king a cool home for the idly-moving trout, farm- 
houses dozing lazily in sunshine and cottages em- 
bowered in creepers and old-world flowers, and ven- 
erable village churches, orderly within and without 
as become temples of faith. And the whole is domi- 
nated by the grey walls of that ^' beautiful and 
strong castle " which have sheltered the infancy of 
many an English sovereign. 

First on the list of those royal children whose 
days of youthful happiness were spent in Ludlow 
Castle comes the spirited Edward, Earl of March, 
the eldest son of that Richard, Duke of York, who 
had a far stronger claim to the English throne than 
the weak Lancastrian, Henry VI, who was enjoying 
the fruits of his grandfather's usurpation. As the 



220 



Royal Castles of England 



reader of history will recall, there came a time when 
it was thought that the conflict between the White 
and Red roses had been ended by that compromise 
by which the Duke of York was recognized as Henry 
VI 's heir, a delusion which was exposed when 
Henry's ambitious queen resolved to continue the 
struggle in the interests of her son. The Yorkists, 
however, never wavered in their allegiance to the 
champion of the White rose, and hence the Earl of 
March, the eldest son of Eichard, Duke of York, was 
regarded by them as being, next to his father, the 
indubitable heir to the crown. 

As Ludlow Castle was the chief seat of his father 
it was natural that his childhood should be spent 
within its walls, where he had for his chief com- 
panion his younger brother, Edmund, Earl of Rut- 
land. Two other sons were born to their father, 
namely, George, who became Duke of Clarence and 
lives in history as the prince who was drowned in 
a butt of malmsey wine, and Richard, who reigned 
as Richard III; but as these two were much 
younger than Edward and Edmund they do not 
seem to have figured much in the boyhood life of 
their elder brothers. 

In fact our knowledge of the Ludlow days of the 
youth who became Edward IV is practically re- 
stricted to the inferences which may be drawn from 
a couple of letters addressed by him and his brother 
to their father. Both these epistles, each subscribed 




THE PRINCES' TOWER, LLDLOW CASTLE. 



A Nursery of Kings 221 

'* Written at your castle of Ludlow," belong to tlie 
year 1454, when Edward was in his twelfth year, 
and as they are so little known they deserve quota- 
tion almost in full. The earlier of these letters runs 
thus: 

'' Right high and right mighty prince, our full 
redoubted and right noble lord and father, as lowly 
as with all our hearts as we your true and natural 
sons can or may, we recommend us unto your noble 
grace, humbly beseeching your noble and worthy 
fatherhood daily to give us your hearty blessing, 
through which we trust much the rather to increase 
and grow to virtue, and to speed the better in all 
matters and things that we shall use, occupy, and 
exercise. Right high and right mighty prince, our 
full redoubted .lord and father, we thank our blessed 
Lord not only of your honourable conduct and good 
speed in all your matters and business, and of your 
gracious prevail against the designs and malice of 
your evil-willers, but also of the knowledge that it 
pleased your nobility to let us now late have of the 
same. . . . And also we thank your nobleness and 
good fatherhood of our green gowns, now sent unto 
us to our great comfort, beseeching your good lord- 
ship to remember our breviary, and that we might 
have some fine bonnets sent unto us by the next sure 
messenger, for necessity so requireth." In that last 
request the discerning may detect how the child is 
father to the man, for the historians have noted that 



222 Royal Castles of England 

Edward IV was distinguished for a love of fine rai- 
ment. 

For the better understanding of the second letter 
it is needful to remember that the Duke of York had 
been appointed protector of the kingdom, and that 
when he wrote the message to which his sons ' letter 
is an answer he was at York quelling some disturb- 
ance. 

** Right high and mighty Prince," his sons wrote, 
" our most worshipful and greatly redoubted lord 
and father, in as lowly wise as any sons can or may 
we recommend us unto your good lordship. And 
please it your highness to wit that we have received 
your worshipful letters yesterday by your servant, 
bearing date at York the 29th day of May, by the 
which we conceive your worshipful and victorious 
speed against your enemies, to their great shame, 
and to us the most comfortable tidings that we de- 
sired to hear. Whereof we thank Almighty God of 
his gifts, beseeching Him heartily to give you that 
grace and daily fortune hereafter to know your ene- 
mies and to have victory of them. And if it please 
your highness to know of our welfare, at the making 
of this letter we were in good health of body, thanks 
be God ; beseeching your good and gracious father- 
hood of your daily blessing. And where ye com- 
mand us by your said letters to attend specially to 
our learning in our young age that should cause us 
to grow to honour and worship in our old age. 



A Nursery of Kings 223 

please it your highness to wit that we have attended 
our learning since we came hither, and shall here- 
after; by the which we trust to God your gracious 
lordship and good fatherhood shall be pleased." 
There were no acknowledgments this time of 
" green gowns " or requests for '' fine bonnets; " 
all the lads pleaded for was that their father would 
send to them a certain groom of his kitchen whose 
service had been '^ right agreeable " to them, in 
return for whom they would despatch one John 
Boyes to wait on their right high and mighty father. 

Five years later, so early were the scions of noble 
houses in those turbulent days required to bear 
their share in the conflicts of the Eoses, the Earl of 
March was fighting by his father's side. His 
mother and his two younger brothers had remained 
at Ludlow, only to fall into the hands of the Lan- 
castrians. This was in the autumn of 1459 ; in the 
March of the following year, so rapidly did events 
move, the young earl was proclaimed king as Ed- 
ward IV. And it speaks well for his memory of his 
boyhood days at Ludlow that in the first year of his 
reign he demonstrated his affection for the town by 
granting it a charter considerably extending its 
franchises and relieving the borough from all 
feudal dependence. 

Thenceforward, indeed, so long as Edward lived 
the town could always count upon his steadfast and 
powerful friendship. Its situation on the Welsh 



224 Royal Castles of England 

borders subjected it to many dangers, for the law- 
less Welsh lost no opportunity of plundering their 
richer neighbours. Hence the petition of 1472, in 
which the king was asked to consider the wrongs of 
those of his subjects who lived in that *' land ad- 
joining the country of Wales " and were suifering 
so severely from the '' outrageous demeanour " of 
the Welsh robbers. It was in answer to that appeal 
that Edward decided upon an innovation in the 
government of his realm. Although his eldest son, 
Edward, was a mere infant, he created him Prince 
of Wales, and shortly thereafter dispatched him to 
Ludlow Castle to hold his court there as represent- 
ing the power of the throne. In other words, as an 
old chronicle states, the heir to the crown was sent 
to Ludlow '^ for justice to be done in the marches 
of Wales, to the end that by the authority of his 
presence the wild Welshmen and evil disposed per- 
sons should refrain from their accustomed murders 
and outrages. ' ' This scheme answered another pur- 
pose; it was necessary to provide his son with an 
establishment where he could be educated and 
trained for his future responsibility, and, remem- 
bering his boyhood, what was more natural than for 
Edward's choice to fall upon the castle in which he 
had spent his own years of tuition? 

When the king had formulated his plan to send 
his son to Ludlow, and had appointed his guardians, 
he drafted a constitution for the regulation of his 



A Nursery of Kings 225 

household, a copy of which still exists among the 
manuscripts of Lambeth Palace. That document is 
at once an eloquent testimony of the careful thought 
Edward bestowed upon the smallest details of his 
son 's training for his future life, and a curious illus- 
tration of how royal households were conducted in 
the fifteenth century. 

vTuming first to those regulations which more im- 
mediately concerned the companions and servants 
of the young prince — the former being ' ' sons of 
noble lords and gentlemen" — we find that elab- 
orate provision was made for their religious wel- 
fare, there being no fewer than three chaplains in 
attendance, who were enjoined to say mass at six 
o'clock every morning, matins at seven, and song 
mass at nine. ; The two chief meals of the day, din- 
ner and supper, were to be served at ten and four 
o'clock respectively; the gates of the castle were in 
winter to be opened between six and seven and 
closed at nine, and in summer from between five and 
six to ten at night; and while all " dishonest or 
unknown " persons were at all times to be denied 
entrance to the castle the warders were strictly 
charged that they " suffer no man to enter the said 
gates with weapons." To ensure the good conduct 
of the servants all were forbidden to *' use words 
of ribaldry ; " no retainer was to practise extortion 
on the townsfolk ; and if any quarrelled to the ex- 
tent of blows they were to be put in the stocks for 



226 Royal Castles of England 

a first offence and dismissed for a second. The king 
also framed minute regulations for the keeping of 
his son's accounts, expressly charging, however, 
that one of the chaplains was to act as the prince's 
almoner and '' discreetly, and diligently give and 
distribute our said son's alms to poor people." Nor 
did he forget the wise proviso that the household 
should always include a " sufficient and cunning " 
physician. 

Although less stringent in the appointing of fixed 
hours for his religious duties, meals, tuition and 
recreation, the ordinances relating to the daily life 
of the prince were as explicit as those for the gov- 
ernment of his household. He was to arise every 
morning '' at a convenient hour, according to his 
age," hear matins in his chamber, then proceed to 
mass in the chapel, which was to be followed imme- 
diately by breakfast. The subsequent morning 
hours were to be devoted to " such virtuous learn- 
ing as his age shall suffer to receive; " dinner was 
to be served at a suitable hour, during which meal 
were to be read to him " such noble stories as be- 
hoveth a prince to understand and know; " after 
dinner he was to be indulged in ' ' convenient games 
and exercises; " then even-song, supper, and to his 
bed by eight o'clock. And throughout the night a 
'' good and sure watch " was to be kept over his 
person. 

Such, in brief outline, was the " daily round and 



A Nursery of Kings 227 

common task " of Prince Edward's life in Ludlow 
Castle in those long-spent years of the fifteenth 
century. The talk he heard day by day was to be 
'' of virtue, honour, knowledge, wisdom, and of 
deeds of worship, and of nothing that should move 
or stir him to vice." As he grew in boyish years 
he had the companionship of his brother Richard, 
and frequently the two lads were gladdened by their 
mother's presence. Rarely can they have seen their 
kingly father, but that he was not forgetful of them 
may be inferred from the frequent presents of cloth 
of gold and purple and green velvet which were sent 
to Ludlow for their wardrobe. The traditions of 
the town have preserved the memory of the two 
princes to this day, for the apartments in the far 
corner of the inner courtyard are still pointed out 
as the Princes' Tower. 

Ten years fled, and then, on an April day of 1483, 
sombre news came to Ludlow. The king was dead. 
So that lad of thirteen summers was monarch in his 
father's stead. King Edward V of England. Some 
two weeks later he bade farewell to the home of his 
happy childhood, for it behoved him to proceed to 
his capital of London. Met on the journey by his 
ruthless Uncle Richard, he was conveyed to the 
Tower of London, where, in the company of that 
brother who had been his playmate at Ludlow, a 
few months later two brutal gaolers smothered him 
as he slept. 



228 Royal Castles of England 



■ 



\ To Prince Edward succeeded Prince Arthur. 
Having married Elizabeth of York, the eldest 
daughter of Edward IV, it was perhaps natural that 
Henry VII should follow the example of his prede- 
cessor in sending his eldest born son to keep his 
court in Ludlow Oastle. The birth of Prince Arthur 
was the occasion of great rejoicing, for the child 
was another pledge against a renewal of the Wars 
of the Eoses. His christening in the glorious min- 
ster of Winchester was performed with stately 
ceremonial; his creation as Prince of Wales was 
made a gorgeous pageant; his betrothal to Cather- 
ine of Aragon flattered the pride of English and 
Spanish alike. Such glowing reports of his future 
wife reached the youth that his love-letters to her 
written from Ludlow Castle have all the passion of 
genuine affection. ' ' I have read " — so ran one of 
those epistles — ** the most sweet letters of your 
highness lately given to me, from which I easily per- 
ceive your most entire love to me. Truly those your 
letters, traced by your own hand, have so delighted 
me, and have rendered me so cheerful and jocund, 
that I fancied I beheld your highness and conversed 
with and embraced my dearest spouse. I cannot 
tell you what an earnest desire I feel to see your 
highness, and how vexatious to me is this procrasti- 
nation about your coming. I owe eternal thanks to 
your excellence that you so lovingly correspond to 
this my so ardent love. Let it continue, I entreat. 




PRINCE ARTHURS TOWER, LUDLOW CASTLE. 



A Nursery of Kings 229 

as it has begun; and, like as I cherish your sweet 
remembrance night and day, so do you preserve my 
name ever fresh in your breast. And let your com- 
ing to me be hastened, that instead of being absent 
we may be present with each other." Catherine's 
reply to this letter, penned '' from our castle of 
Ludlow, ' ' is unfortunately lost ; she could not com- 
plain that her thirteen-year-old lover was a juvenile 
wooer. 

But the impatient youth had to wait still another 
two years ere he clasped his ' ' dearest wife ' ' to his 
heart. The marriage ceremony, which took place 
in London in November, 1501, was even more re- 
splendent than that which had celebrated his crea- 
tion as Prince of Wales, and shortly after the com- 
pletion of the festivities by which it was commemo- 
rated the young couple were dispatched to that 
Ludlow Castle where Prince Arthur had spent so 
many of his boyhood years. Whether the two ever 
cohabited as man and wife was to become a serious 
problem of state in future years ; the one sure fact 
in the history of their wedded life is that in less 
than five months Catherine of Aragon was a widow. 

It was in Ludlow Castle the young prince died, 
most probably in that apartment still known as 
Prince Arthur's Tower. Although never of robust 
health, his death was so sudden and unexpected that 
the bearer of the tidings to his parents had an un- 
usually arduous task, as is obvious from the pathetic 



230 Royal Castles of England 



account of the manner in which the news was im 
parted. On the arrival of the messenger from Lud- 
low the members of the council decided that the 
king's confessor would be the most suitable person 
to communicate the heavy and sorrowful tidings, 
and desired him " in his best manner to show it to 
the King. He, ' ' so the narrative continues, ' ' in the 
morning of the Tuesday following, somewhat before 
the time accustomed, knocked at the King's chamber 
door, and when the King understood it was his con- 
fessor, he commanded to let him in. The confessor 
then commanded all those present to avoid, and 
after due salutation began to say ' Si bona de manu 
Dei suscip'imus, mala autem quare non sustineamus, ' 
and so showed his Grace that his dearest son was 
departed to God. When his Grace understood that 
sorrowful tidings, he sent for the Queen, saying that 
he and his Queen would take the painful sorrows 
together. After that she was come and saw the 
King her lord, and that natural and painful sorrow, 
as I have heard say, she, with full great and con- 
stant comfortable words besought his Grace that he 
would first after God remember the weal of his own 
noble person, the comfort of his realm, and of her. 
She then said, that my lady, his mother, had never 
no more children but him only, and that God by his 
grace had ever preserved him, and brought him 
where that he was. Over that, how that God had 
left him yet a fair prince, two fair princesses ; and 



1 



A Nursery of Kings 231 

that God is where he was, and we are both young 
enough; and that the prudence and wisdom of his 
Grace sprung over all Christendom, so that it should 
please him to take this according thereunto. Then 
the King thanked her of her good comfort. After 
that she was departed and come to her own cham- 
ber, natural and motherly remembrance of that 
great loss smote her so sorrowful to the heart, that 
those that were about her were fain to send for the 
King to comfort her. Then his Grace, of true, 
gentle, and faithful love, in good haste came and 
relieved her, and showed how wise counsel she had 
given him before ; and he, for his part, would thank 
God for his son, and would she should do in like 
wise." 

Nigh a quarter of a century elapsed ere another 
scion of the royal house was sent to Ludlow. In the 
interval Catherine of Aragon had become the wife 
of Arthur's brother, Henry VIII, and it was their 
child, the Princess Mary, for whom a new court was 
established in the fortress of the border town. 
Mary came hither in the late summer of 1525, when 
she was in her ninth year, and her governess, the 
Countess of Salisbury, was given almost as many 
instructions as the guardians of Prince Edward. 
She was to have a ' ' tender regard ' ' for everything 
that concerned the '^ honourable education " and 
'* virtuous demeanour " of the princess, at the same 
time allowing her to use *' moderate exercise " in 



232 Royal Castles of England 

the gardens. Here Mary remained for a year and 
a half, the last of her royal race to represent the 
sovereign power of England on the borders of 
Wales. 

But, such is the wealth of history attaching to 
this venerable building, the royal associations of 
Ludlow Castle form no more than a parenthesis in 
its annals; as its chronicle is linked with famous 
names subsequent to the departure of the Princess 
Mary, so it had gathered a unique harvest of ro- 
mance ere it became the boyhood home of Edward 
IV. Something of that romance is perpetuated in 
the name of one of its towers, for Mortimer's Tower 
recalls how a twelfth-century lord of the castle cap- 
tured and imprisoned there his enemy of Wigmore. 
That exploit is attributed to Sir Joyce de Dinan, 
who has, however, left a more satisfying memorial 
of his activity in the unique little circular Norman 
chapel of the inner courtyard. Legend tells, too, of 
another prisoner confined here who secured his re- 
lease by the time-honoured device of making love 
to a " very gentle damsel," his final betrayal of 
whom resulted in tragedy for them both. 

After the death of Prince Arthur, the council 
which had been entrusted with his affairs was con- 
tinued as a regular court of jurisdiction for the 
government of the borderland, its president being 
honoured with the title of the Lord Marcher. Many 
notable men were promoted to that vice-regal office, 



A Nursery of Kings 233 

but of them all the most distinguished was that Sir 
Henry Sidney who was responsible for the building 
of those handsome Elizabethan apartments which 
cluster about the inner gate-house. Thus Ludlow 
Castle was for some seven and twenty years the 
chief home of the sire of the illustrious Sir Philip 
Sidney, and many a moving incident of his domestic 
history is associated with these time-stained walls. 
Here, too, he died, grown prematurely old in the 
thankless service of Queen Elizabeth, leaving his 
heart to be buried in that church where he had laid 
the corpse of his beloved youngest daughter. 

Later among the Lord Marchers came John, Earl 
of Bridgewater, he for whose accession to that high 
post one John Milton dreamed and penned his 
masque of '' Comus." Legend has been busy with 
that event ever since. Facing the castle walls is a 
lovely half-timbered house in which Milton is af- 
firmed to have written his lyrical drama, and far 
down beneath those same walls is a tangled grove 
of wild woodland in which, so tradition avers, three 
children of the Earl of Bridgewater lost their way 
and so gave the poet the germ of his plot. The 
higher criticism, however, will have naught to do 
with these pretty fancies, leaving the sentimental- 
ist nothing more than the fact that ^' Comus " was 
indubitably performed for the first time in that 
noble apartment now known as the *' ' Comus ' 
Hall." 



234 



Royal Castles of England 



If Milton never visited Ludlow, another poet did. 
In ante-civil war days, when the Puritan with his 
nasal intonation and cropped hair and severe garb 
made him an irresistible subject for satire, Samuel 
Butler sketched his portrait at full length in ' ' Hu- 
dibras," and the greater part of that unfaltering 
picture took shape within the hoary walls of Ludlow 
Castle, where the poet held the office of steward. 
That was an adequate Nemesis for the devastation 
the building had suffered at the hands of the Eound- 
heads. When the castle came into their possession 
they made an inventory of its contents and sold 
everything with the exception of a set of tapestry 
hangings; those, the most valuable of all the plen- 
ishings, became the perquisite of Oliver Cromwell. 
Consequently when Butler took up his abode here as 
steward he had to spend a considerable sum in fur- 
nishing his rooms. By the first decade of the eight- 
eenth century most of the apartments had been 
made habitable once more, but soon after the acces- 
sion of the first of the Georges an order was given 
to strip the lead from the roof of the buildings, the 
inevitable result of which was that the castle soon 
began to fall into ruin. Hence the decay of this 
noble building is due to George I's desire to fill his 
flaccid Hanoverian pockets. 

Had Ludlow Castle no such links with the historic 
past as have been described, the glorious view from 
its watch-tower would be reward enough for a pil- 




THE DOORWAY OF THE KEEP, LLDI.OW CASTLE. 



A Nursery of Kings 235 

grimage to its walls. Away to the setting sun spa- 
cious green meadows diapered with tangled hedge- 
rows and umbrageous trees stretch to the purple 
hills, disclosing a feast of beauty which proves once 
more that ancient castle builders had a deeper 
aesthetic sense than moderns believe. 



CHAPTER VI 

AN OUTPOST OF THE CIVIL WAB 
RAGLAN CASTLE 

No impeacliment of the hardness of the Puritan 
spirit could possibly exceed that of the piles of 
petitions which repose in the archives of the House 
of Lords, few of which have yet been woven into 
the history of the civil war of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. One of those documents, dated the 16th of 
December, 1646, and described as the '' Petition of 
Henry Earl of Worcester," told how the suppliant 
was nearly fourscore years, how owing to age and 
infirmity he could not walk in his chamber or move 
in his bed without help, and how he had no money 
with which to pay his necessary expenses. As he 
felt the sands of life were fast ebbing, he implored 
the Parliament that he might *' die out of re- 
straint " and also have some allowance for his main- 
tenance. On which piteous document is inscribed 
the terse indorsement: " Nothing done. Dead." 

One request of the dying old peer had, however, 
been granted by the austere Parliament, the credit 
of which is nullified by the fact that in this case it 
cost nothing to be complaisant. He had asked that 

236 



An Outpost of the Civil War 237 

he might be buried in his family vault in St. 
George's Chapel at Windsor, and on learning that 
such permission had been accorded he, with a touch 
of his old sprightliness, ejaculated : ' ' Wliy, God 
bless us all ! then I shall have a better castle when 
I am dead than they took from me when I was 
alive! " 

For Henry Somerset, fifth earl and first marquis 
of Worcester, was one of the many nobles whose 
loyalty to Charles I had reduced him from wealth 
to beggary and had removed him from a castle to 
a prison. Yet surely it was but a flash of courtier- 
like compliment which had made him describe his 
king's palace at Windsor as a '^ better castle " than 
his own of Raglan. '* Better " in the sense of more 
imposing royal Windsor unquestionably was, but 
for beauty of situation and picturesqueness of arch- 
itecture the Monmouthshire home of the Somersets 
can hold its own with any castle in the kingdom. It 
may be doubted, indeed, whether there is anywhere 
a more romantically lovely ruin. 

Copious is the anthology of its praise. '' A fair 
and pleasant castle, with two parks adjacent " is 
the tribute of Leland; '' a fair house of the Earl of 
Worcester's, built castle-like " is Camden's phrase; 
'* the magnificent house of the marquis of Worces- 
ter " is the comment of Clarendon; while the 
soldier-poet of the sixteenth century, Thomas 
Churchyard, amplified his admiration in these lines ; 



238 Royal Castles of England 

" A famous castle fine 
That Raglan hight, stands moated almost round; 
Made of free-stone, upright, as straight as line, 
Whose workmanship in beauty doth abound, 
With curious knots, wrought all with edged tool: 
The stately Tower that looks o'er pond and pool; 
The fountain trim, that runs both day and night, 
Doth yield in show a rare and noble sight," 



iA later eulogist described the building as the 
'' brightest gem " of the Somerset possessions; to 
Euskin it was the '' sweetest " of all the records of 
human pride. He thought of the lovely ruin as 
standing in utter solitude ^' amidst the wild wood 
of its own pleasance, the towers rounded with ivy, 
and the forest roots choked with undergrowth, and 
the brook languid amidst lilies and sedges." To 
these panegyrics must be added the lines in which 
a more modern poet enshrined its spirit of romance 
and paid tribute to the faithfulness which laid the 
building in ruin. 



" Stranger! ponder here awhile; 
Pause in Raglan's ruined pile; 
All that wealth and power, combined, 
With skill to plan, and taste refined, 
To rear a structure fit to be 
The home of England's chivalry. 
Was lavished here! where, met in hall, 
Mailed barons kept their festival; 
The night in lordly wassail spent — 
The day in tilt and tournament: 
Yet still, when England's woes began. 
Were first to arm and lead the van; 




THE TOWER OF GWENT, RAGLAN CASTLE. 



An Outpost of the Civil War 239 

To shield the Monarch in his need, 
In Freedom's glorious cause to bleed; 
To loyalty surrendering all — 
Then, with their falling King to fall! " 



Beautiful as the castle is in decay, suggesting by 
its stately towers, its exquisite masonry, its finely 
proportioned windows and doorways, tlie picture of 
lordly magnificence it must have presented in the 
heyday of its glory, an old manuscript which de- 
scribes its appearance prior to the outbreak of the 
civil war makes the reader realize how far the real- 
ity must have exceeded all that his fancy can imag- 
ine. The writer dwells lovingly upon its three 
gates, upon the massive Tower of Gwent which took 
no impression from the hea\'y cannon-balls of the 
Eoundheads, upon the arched bridge with its battle- 
mented turrets, upon the noble hall with its rare 
roof of Irish oak, upon the parlours and dining- 
room and chapel, upon the pitched court with its 
marble fountain, upon the pleasant walks adorned 
with " figures of the Eoman emperors in arches of 
divers varieties of shell works," upon the spacious 
bowling-green '' much liked by his late Majesty for 
its situation, ' ' upon the verdant gardens and * ' fair 
built summer-houses," upon the fish pond of many 
acres, and the orchard and parks thickly planted 
with large beeches and richly stocked with deer. 

Nor is that the only document which helps us to 
recall in what princely state the Marquis of Worces- 



240 Royal Castles of England 

ter kept house at Raglan Castle in those days when 
he became the host of his fugitive king. Another 
old manuscript gives a prodigious list of the officers 
and menial servants of his establishment, enumer- 
ates and names the steward, the tutor, the secre- 
tary, the master of the horse, the surveyors and au- 
ditors, the master of the fishponds, the server, the 
gentlemen waiters and pages, the ushers of the hall, 
the masters of wardrobe and armory and stable, the 
yeomen of the cellar and pantry and buttery, the 
porters and ploughmen, and the countless other re- 
tainers who served my lord marquis in one capacity 
or other. 

V Such was the castle and such were the members 
of the household when, on a July day of 1645, King 
Charles I asked admission within its gates. His 
cause was almost hopeless ; the victory of the Par- 
liament on the battlefield of Naseby had scattered 
his forces and driven him westward in the expecta- 
tion that he might recruit his strength among the 
loyalists of that country. And, in the meantime, he 
knew that the Marquis of Worcester, despite the 
fact that he was a Catholic, would accord him the 
hospitality of his noble castle. On the arms of the 
gateway he could read the proud motto of the Som- 
erset line: '' Mutare vel timere sperno " ('* I scorn 
to change or fear "), in itself an encouraging wel- 
come to the harassed monarch. 
But a warmer greeting awaited him than that 




THE GATEWAY OF THE BOWLING-GREEN, RAGLAN CASTLE. 



An Outpost of the Civil War 241 

carved motto. As Charles drew rein at the gate he 
was received by the kneeling marquis who, having 
kissed his sovereign's hand, saluted him with, 
'' Domine! non sum dignus," to which the king re- 
joined, " My Lord, I may very well answer you 
again: ' I have not found so great faith, no not in 
Israel.' No man would trust me with so much 
money as you have done." Nor did that inter- 
change of compliment end the little ceremony. Obe- 
dient to the custom of nobles when visited by their 
monarch, the marquis handed Charles the keys of 
his castle; and when the king gave them back he 
added : " I beseech your Majesty to keep them, if 
you please, for they are in a good hand ; but I am 
afraid that ere long I shall be forced to deliver them 
into the hands of those who will spoil the compli- 
ment. ' ' 

Thrice during those anxious days of the summer 
of 1645 did Charles avail liimself of the hospitality 
of Raglan Castle. And many incidents are recorded 
of the loyalty still cherished for him by the people 
of that Monmouthshire countryside. When the Rev. 
Thomas Swift, vicar of Goodrich, heard that his 
king was in need of money, he at once mortgaged 
his little estate for three hundred board pieces and, 
having had those coins quilted into his waistcoat, 
set out for Raglan Castle. '* The governor, who 
knew him well, asked what was his errand. ' I am 
come,' said Swift, ' to give his Majesty my coat,' 



242 Royal Castles of England 

at the same time pulling it off and presenting it. 
The governor told him pleasantly that his coat was 
little worth. * Well, then,' said Swift, ' take my 
waistcoat.' This was soon found to be a useful 
garment by its weight; and it is remarked by my 
Lord Clarendon that the King received no supply 
more seasonable or acceptable than these three hun- 
dred broad pieces during the whole war. ' ' The king 
was never in a position to repay that generous deed, 
and Swift not only lost his money but was ejected 
from his living by the Parliament. 

Fearful lest his numerous retinue should exhaust 
the supplies of the castle, Charles offered to em- 
power his host to levy for food on the surrounding 
country. There was no necessity for that. Not 
only was the marquis averse to such compulsion, but 
he knew he could count upon the assistance of the 
tenants of his manor. In fact, those tenants had 
subscribed their names to a pledge to provide corn 
and other supplies as they were able, a covenant 
which they faithfully observed until the last. Nor 
did the royal table lack even for delicacies. It so 
happened that a brother of the marquis. Sir Thomas 
Somerset, lived close by at a house called Troy, and 
that Sir Thomas was an expert gardener and grower 
of rare fruits. As his trees were in full bearing at 
the time of the royal visit to Raglan he sent a large 
present of his produce to the castle, which his 
brother the marquis insisted upon offering to hia 



An Outpost of the Civil War 243 

illustrious guest with his own hands. Having 
threaded a little basket on one arm, and taking in 
either hand a silver dish, the venerable peer ap- 
proached the king after supper and addressed him 
thus: 

'* May it please your Majesty, if the four ele- 
ments could have been robbed to have entertained 
your Majesty, I think I had done my duty; but I 
must do as I may. If I had sent to Bristol for some 
good things to entertain your Majesty, there had 
been no wonder at all. If I had procured from 
London some goodness that might have been accept- 
able to your Majesty, that had been no wonder in- 
deed. But here I present your Majesty with that 
which neither came from Lincoln that was, nor Lon- 
don that is, nor York that is to be ; but I assure your 
Majesty that this present came from Troy." 

Charles was ready with a fit rejoinder. '' Truly, 
my lord, ' ' he said with a smile, ' ' I have heard that 
corn now grows where Troy town once stood; but 
I never thought they had grown any apricots there 
before." 

But stately compliment and noble entertainment 
could not disguise from the king that his affairs 
were in a parlous condition. The Marquis of 
Worcester had already advanced him large sums of 
money, yet his needs were as pressing as ever. 
When the chaplain came to the marquis as the 
** messenger of bad news — the King wants 



244 Royal Castles of England 

money " — his lord interrupted him with the dry- 
comment: *' Hold, sir, that's no news; go on with 
your business." All the return Charles was ever 
able to make to his generous host was to promise 
him the Garter and assure him that as soon as his 
troubles were over he would create him a duke. Ere 
the unhappy king left Raglan for the last time he 
was crushed by the news of the surrender of Bris- 
tol ; after such a blow to his hopes of receiving aid 
from the west country he realized that he must seek 
some other refuge. So, on a mid- September day, 
the royal guest took his departure, remarking to his 
host that he wished to relieve him of a great burden. 
Yet the relief to the marquis was not so great 
after all. Although he was approaching his four- 
score years, and notwithstanding the vast sums of 
money he had expended in fitting out a little army 
for the royalist cause, he. had been at infinite pains 
to prepare his castle for a siege before the king's 
arrival. And he must have anticipated that the fact 
of his having given shelter to the king would in- 
crease his danger of attack from the forces of the 
Parliament. Indeed he had not to wait long before 
reaping the reward of his hospitality, for soon after 
Charles had left Raglan the Parliament seized the 
rents of Worcester's London property and gave 
orders for the sale of his lands and houses in the 
capital as a punishment for his *' treasons and of- 
fences." He knew, too, that the next attention 




THE ENTRANCE TO THE STATE APARTMENTS, RAGLAN CASTLE. 



An Outpost of the Civil War 245 

would take the form of an attack on his castle of 
Eaglan. 

Several years earlier, indeed, he had received a 
convincing proof that he was held to be a suspected 
person by the Puritans of his neighbourhood, for 
a body of them came one day to search the castle 
for arms. The marquis himself received his unin- 
vited visitors and led them on a tour through the 
building, secretly instructing one of his servants 
of a plan he had devised for their discomfiture. For 
it should be remembered that the eldest son of the 
marquis was that Edward Herbert who distin- 
guished himself by so many curious inventions, one 
of which he had set up inside the Tower of Gwent, 
which was part of the castle buildings. This par- 
ticular contrivance consisted of an engine and 
numerous water-wheels, which, when set a-going, 
made huge cataracts inside the tower and created 
a prodigious roaring noise. When the marquis had 
led his inquisitive visitors to the bridge near this 
tower he gave the signal for the engine to be started, 
and as soon as the bellowing sound was heard an- 
other servant dashed forward exclaiming, '' Look 
to yourselves, my masters, for the lions are got 
loose! " The valiant Puritans needed no second 
warning; in a flash they scurried out of the castle 
and never looked back till th^ building was out of 
sight. 

All through the winter following the departure of 



246 Royal Castles of England 

Charles various efforts were made by the Round- 
heads to annoy the lord of Raglan Oastle, but it was 
not until the spring of 1646 that the place was really 
invested. At first, however, the siege was main- 
tained in a lukewarm fashion, no serious attempt 
on the fortress being made until the month of June. 
In anticipation of the coming struggle the besieged 
had destroyed every structure near the castle that 
might afford shelter to the enemy, levelling even 
the tower of the village church lest it should be used 
for the mounting of cannon. As the garrison con- 
sisted of some eight hundred men, occasional sallies 
were made, several of which resulted in the slaugh- 
ter or capture of some of the Parliamentary sol- 
diers. At last, towards the end of June, the Round- 
head commander, Colonel Morgan, sent a stern 
summons to the aged marquis, informing him that 
as Sir Thomas Fairfax had " finished his work 
over the kingdom except this castle " he had dis- 
patched some of his forces to assist the besiegers 
in effecting its reduction. If the marquis did not 
surrender he was to expect nothing save the ruin of 
himself, his family, and that ' ' poor distressed coun- 
try." He might ^' haply find mercy " by agreeing 
to deliver the building at once. 

To this the venerable peer answered that he made 
choice ^' rather to die nobly than to live with in- 
famy; " and to a second summons he rejoined that 
he served a ' ' Master that is of more might than all 



An Outpost of the Civil War 247 

the armies in the world." A few days later Sir 
Thomas Fairfax himself arrived upon the scene, 
with such a strength as, he affirmed, would be suf- 
ficient, with the '' good hand of Providence," to 
reduce the garrison of Eaglan to the obedience of 
the Parliament. Several letters passed between the 
general and the marquis, each excessively polite in 
its terms, the marquis pleading that Raglan was the 
only house he had to *' cover his head in," and the 
soldier replying that if he had not formed it into 
a *' garrison " he would not have troubled its owner 
for its surrender. But, as the store of provisions 
in the castle was fast disappearing, and as there was 
no hope of a royalist force coming to raise the siege, 
all those polite notes could have but one ending. It 
came on a day in August, the treaty of surrender 
agreeing that all the officers and soldiers were to 
be allowed to march out with the honours of war, 
then deliver up their arms and be set at liberty. 
The marquis had to be content to submit himself 
to the mercy of the Parliament. 

What form that mercy took for the aged and in- 
firm peer has already been seen; towards the castle 
itself the Parliament manifested its sentiment by 
ordering it to be " forthwith pulled down and de- 
molished." The materials, too, were to be sold 
" for the best advantage of the state " after the 
charges for the destruction had been duly deducted. 
Here, then, in this lovely ruin, may be seen an in- 



248 Royal Castles of England 

dubitable example of the iconoclasm of the Puritan 
spirit. No doubt many a devastation of city min- 
ster or village church or lordly castle is wrongfully 
charged to the account of Cromwell and his Iron- 
sides, but the proofs of guilt in the case of Eaglan 
are too strong to admit of any verdict save one. 
Yet, so honestly had the old builders reared these 
walls, much of its solid masonry defied all the as- 
saults of Puritan pick-axes and battering-rams. 
Enough was demolished to destroy the value of the 
building as the last outpost of the civil war, and 
never more would its walls afford a shelter for the 
fugitive king; but sufficient remains to ensure for 
many a generation the proud supremacy of Raglan 
Castle as the most picturesque ruin in all England. 



Ill 

NORTHERN ENGLAND 



CHAPTER I 

A - HUNTING WITH KING JAMES 
HOGHTON TOWER 

When Mary Stuart gave birth to the heir to her 
crown she presented the infant to her husband, 
Lord Darnley, with the remark that he was '' so 
much " his son that she feared it would be '' the 
worse for him hereafter." What did she mean? 
Was it that she expected the child would prove as 
vain, as weak-minded, as ambitious but as ill-quali- 
fied for rule as his father? Or was that strange 
saying merely her protest against the insinuation 
that David Rizzio and not Darnley was the father 
of the child? 

Remembering the traditional beauty of Mary 
Stuart and the handsome physique of Darnley — 
his wife thought him *' the best proportioned long 
man ' ' she knew — and remembering also that 
Rizzio was credited with being uncomely and mis- 
shapen, much might be urged in excuse for those 
Scots who were free with the taunt that Mary's 
heir was * ' the son of Senior Davie. ' ' Take him for 
all in all, whether regard be had to his bodily form 
or his manners or his mental equipment, James 
Stuart was certainly the most un-royal person who 
ever occupied the English throne. If destiny had 

251 



252 Royal Castles of England 



^ 



cast Mm for the role of a second-rate university 
professor or fitted him with the part of a master 
of the hounds, he would have gone through life with 
a certain amount of credit; that he was ordained 
to be a king was one of those freaks of Providence 
for which there is no accounting. 

One who, by reason of his service at court, had 
good opportunity of studying his original, Sir An- 
thony Weldon, has left on record a vivid portrait of 
the first Stuart king of England, the truth of which 
is accepted by a Scottish historian. Here, then, is 
the picture of James Stuart as he was seen by a 
contemporary: '* He was of middle stature, more 
corpulent through his clothes than in his body, yet 
fat enough; his clothes ever being made large and 
easy, the doublets quilted for stiletto-proof; his 
breeches in great plaits, and full stuffed. He was 
naturally of a timid disposition, which was the 
greatest reason of his quilted doublets. His eyes 
large, ever rolling after any stranger came in his 
presence, inasmuch as many for shame have left 
the room, being out of countenance. His beard 
very thin ; his tongue too large for his mouth, which 
ever made him speak full in the mouth, and made 
him drink very uncomely, as if eating his drink, 
which came out into the cup on each side of his 
mouth. His skin was soft as taffeta sarcenet, which 
felt so because he never washed his hands — only 
rubbed his finger-ends slightly with the wet end of 



A-Hunting with King James 253 

a napkin. His legs were very weak, having had, as 
was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather 
before he was born, that he was not able to stand at 
seven years of age — that weakness made him ever 
leaning on other men's shoulders. His walk was 
ever circular, his fingers ever in that walk fiddling 
about his codpiece. ... In his diet, apparel, and 
journeys he was very constant. In his apparel so 
constant, as by his goodwill he would never change 
his clothes till almost worn out to rags — his fash- 
ion never. . . . He was very liberal of what he had 
not in his own grip, and would rather part with a 
hundred pounds he never had in his keeping, than 
one twenty- shilling piece within his own custody." 
To all this one of James's own countrymen has 
added that he was '' fussy and pompous," guilty 
of " mendacity and deception," had a ^' diseased 
curiosity about the things that right-tempered 
minds only approach at the bidding of necessity and 
duty," and was altogether a '^ grotesque " figure. 
Such was the monarch which Scotland supplied to 
take the place of the queenly Elizabeth! The im- 
pression he made on those of his English subjects 
who were under no obligation to flattery may be 
inferred from this vignette : ' ' I shall leave him 
dressed for posterity in the colours I saw him 
in the next progress after his inauguration; which 
was as green as the grass he trod on ; with a feather 
in his cap, and a horn instead of a sword by his side. 



254 Royal Castles of England 

How suitable to his age, calling, or person, I leave 
others to judge." 

Yet that green raiment and feather and horn 
were characteristic of the man. For his first pleas- 
ure in life, the one to which everything else was 
secondary, was that of the chase. This was quickly 
discovered by an Italian who made a casual visit to 
England some six years after James succeeded to 
the throne; he reported that hunting was the king's 
chief exercise, in which he consumed the principal 
part of his time. His second taste was for books, 
leading the Italian to describe his mode of life as 
more that of a theologian than a prince, a hunter 
than a king. This witness also noted that James 
had no kind of grace or royal dignity. 

Judging from that story of his childhood which 
tells how he had a violent quarrel with a playmate 
for the possession of a sparrow, it would seem as 
though Mary Stuart's son was dominated by a 
sporting instinct from his birth. The history of 
his life in his native land has numerous references 
to his growing passion for all kinds of hunting, and 
when he had the rare fortune to succeed to the 
English throne the prospect of being able to indulge 
in hunting and hawking under far more favourable 
conditions than Scotland could afford gave him un- 
measured delight. Such, indeed, was his devotion 
to sport, and so sadly lacking was he in the graces 
of conduct, that, notwithstanding the recent death 



A-Hunting with King James 255 

of Elizabeth, lie could not refrain from his favour- 
ite pastime even on his journey to assume the dead 
queen's crown. That Elizabeth's body was still 
awaiting burial was no deterrent to her ill-man- 
nered successor. 

Only one man had the courage to protest that 
James wasted too much time in following the chase. 
Nearly two years after his arrival in England the 
Archbishop of York had occasion to write to Lord 
Cranborne, the secretary of state, and in the course 
of his epistle he ventured to express his wish for 
^' more moderation in the lawful exercise of hunt- 
ing, both that poor men's corn may be less spoiled, 
and other his Majesty's subjects more spared.'^ 
When that passage was read to James his face 
clouded in anger and he declared it was '^ the fool- 
ishest " remark he had ever heard. But, of course, 
he approved of my Lord Cranborne 's reply in which 
that courtier reminded the archbishop that it was 
a praise in the good Emperor Trajan to be dis- 
posed to such manlike and active recreations, and 
added that it ought to be a joy to them to be able 
to behold their king " of so able a constitution." 
^ Another rebuke was administered in an anony- 
mous fashion. One day at Eoyston, where James 
built his chief hunting-seat, the king's favourite 
hound named Jowler was missing, much to his 
master's displeasure. The following day, however, 
the dog re-appeared, with a piece of paper tied 



256 Royal Castles of England 

round his neck on which was written: ** Good 
master Jowler, we pray you speak to the king (for 
he hears you every day, and so he doth not us) that 
it will please his majesty to go back to London ; for 
else the country will be all undone; all our pro- 
vision is spent, and we are not able to entertain him 
longer." It was taken as a jest, adds the narrator 
of the story; the royal huntsman had no intention 
of returning to his capital for another fortnight. 
He used to assure his council that hunting was the 
only means '' to maintain his health," and charged 
them not to interrupt him too much with business. 
When some Puritans presented him with a petition 
on one of his outings he roughly sent them about 
their business. On another occasion he was so an- 
noyed with the press of company that came to see 
him at his sport that he rode home '' and played 
at cards." 

Perhaps he was conscious that he was no more 
a regal figure on horseback than on a throne. It 
was said of him, indeed, that he had such a fashion 
of riding that it could not so properly be said he 
rode as that his horse carried him. Hence the 
natural disappointment of that countryman who 
figures in this anecdote. " I will write you news 
about the court at Rutford, where the loss of a stag, 
and the hounds hunting foxes instead of deer, put 
the king your master into a marvellous chafe, ac- 
companied with those symptoms better known to 



A-Hunting with King James 257 

you courtiers, I conceive, than to us country swains ; 
in the height whereof comes a clown galloping in, 
and staring full in his face; ' 'Sblood,' quoth he, 
' am I come forty miles to see a fellow? ' and pres- 
ently in a great rage turns about his horse, and 
away he goes faster than he came." For once 
James had the good sense to be amused at the ef- 
fect which had resulted from one of his tantrums. 

In view of all these stories it may be imagined 
that the surest way to his favour was to provide 
him with a good day's hunting or present him with 
dogs or horses. This explains the unroyal strain 
of his letter to the Duke of Buckingham, otherwise 
his *' Steenie " or '* Tom Badger " or *' Slave and 
dog," in which he poured '^ blessing, blessing, 
blessing " on his '' sweet Tom Badger's heart- 
roots ' ' for breeding him ' ' so fine a kennel of young- 
hounds " and providing him with such steeds that 
he never before had been master of such hounds 
and horses. 

Whether Sir Richard Hoghton, the master of 
Hoghton Tower, was particularly anxious to curry 
favour with James does not appear; the fact that 
the owner of that beautiful Lancashire mansion also 
possessed one of the finest and best-stocked parks 
in England was sufficient to account for the king's 
memorable visit there in the late summer of 1617. 
So long ago as the time of Edward III the Hoghton 
family had been granted a license to enclose five 



258 



Royal Castles of England 



hundred of their acres as a deer-park, an "unusual 
privilege for a mere subject, and during the inter- 
vening years the park had been so well tended that 
it is not surprising James was anxious to pay it 
a visit. The house of Hoghton Tower, which has 
been restored in modern times and is now a charm- 
ing example of a seventeenth-century home of a 
wealthy country gentleman, was begun in 1565 and 
was sufficiently spacious to accommodate the royal 
hunting-party. Memories of that occasion are per- 
petuated to this day in the names of King James's 
stable, the King's staircase, etc., which are yet in 
common use in the house. 

Having received due notice of the favour that 
was to be conferred upon him. Sir Eichard Hoghton 
exerted himself to the utmost to entertain his royal 
guest worthily. So popular was he with his neigh- 
bours that they agreed to become his servants for 
the nonce, cheerfully consenting to don the coats of 
livery which the master of Hoghton Tower pro- 
vided for the occasion. Those nobles and knights, 
too, arranged all kinds of entertainments, masques 
and dances and pantomimes, with which to regale 
the king after each day's hunting. The supply of 
provisions was so abundant that there were thirty 
dishes at breakfast, fifty-five at dinner, and forty- 
seven at supper. It was at one of those dinners that 
James is said to have perpetrated the jest of calling 
for a sword and knighting a massive joint of beef 





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A-Hunting with King James 259 

as '' Sir Loin," a legend, however, which is ruined 
by the fact that the word " sirloin " was in use 
before the advent of Mary Stuart's son. 

A quaint old diary, written by one Nicholas 
Assheton who took part in the proceedings, gives 
us many glimpses of that visit to Hoghton Tower. 
The record is not complimentary to James's prow- 
ess as a marksman, for it tells how he shot at a 
stag and missed, and how his second attempt did 
no more than break the animal's thigh-bone, neces- 
sitating the intervention of another huntsman to 
j&re the fatal shot. The diary tells us how now it 
was ' ' verie hot, ' ' how the king went down an alum 
mine, how the party was '* late in to supper," how 
the royal guest was served with " briskett, wyne, 
and jellie," how a bishop preached before the king 
on Sunday, how the gentlemen danced and per- 
formed masques in '' the middle room in the gar- 
den," and how there was '' a rush bearing and 
pipering " in the middle court. 
\One incident of that hunting-party was to have 
momentous consequences for James and his suc- 
cessor. The prelate who preached before the king 
was Thomas Morton, Bishop of Chester, on whose 
advice James signed at Hoghton Tower his famous 
Book of Sports. There was a conflict going on in 
Lancashire on the subject of Sunday amusements, 
the Puritans opposing all kinds of recreation on 
that day, and the Catholics declaring that dancing, 



260 Royal Castles of England 



1 



archery, and many games were harmless and allow- 
able. James opposed the Puritan view, and forth- 
with gave orders that all the clergy were to read 
from the pulpit his catalogue of such sports as 
might be indulged in on Sundays after divine serv- 
ice. So firm was the opposition, however, that he 
had to withdraw his edict. That lesson was lost 
upon his son Charles, who, led by Laud, commanded 
the republication of his father's proclamation, the 
result being that many Puritan ministers who re- 
fused to obey were ejected from their livings. 
Hence one of the causes of the civil war of the 
seventeenth century had its origin in James's hunt- 
ing visit to Hoghton Tower. 



CHAPTER n 

THE HOME OF JOHN OF GAUNT 
LANCASTER CASTLE 

Son of a king, father of a king by whom he was 
the progenitor of two more sovereigns of England, 
and by his daughters the ancestor of the Tudors 
and many lines of foreign monarchs, John of 
Gaunt 's career was so crowded with warlike ex- 
ploits and political intrigues that it is difficult to 
think of " home " in connection with his name. 
Born in Ghent — hence, through mispronunciation, 
the ' ' Gaunt ' ' of his popular title — he began sol- 
diering in his fifteenth year, was fighting in Scot- 
land before he was sixteen, was married in his nine- 
teenth year, and thenceforward was constantly 
dashing hither and thither in pursuit of military 
adventure. Now he was marching through France, 
anon he was under arms in Castile, sometimes as 
a commander in the army of his brother the Black 
Prince but oftener as his own captain-general. To 
read even the briefest summary of his life is to 
receive the impression of a man of such restless 
activity that to think of the Duke of Lancaster hav- 
ing a peaceful home becomes almost impossible. 

261 



262 Royal Castles of England 

But if we turn to the pages of Shakespeare we 
gain quite another idea of the fourth son of Edward 
III. There " old John of Gaunt, time-honour 'd 
Lancaster " appears as a loyal subject of his 
nephew Eichard II, peaceful in disposition, and a 
passionate patriot of the type most in love with the 
home-life of his native land. Notwithstanding his 
birth on foreign soil, his constant absence on mili- 
tary expeditions, and his claim to be king of Cas- 
tile, it is on Lancaster's lips that Shakespeare 
places that glowing eulogy of England which none 
can appropriate who have not the tendrils of their 
affection closely entwined about some English home. 

" This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, 
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 
This other Eden, demi-paradise, 
This fortress built by Nature for herself 
Against infection and the hand of war, 
This happy breed of men, this little world, 
This precious stone set in the silver sea, 
Which serves it in the office of a wall 
Or as a moat defensive to a house. 
Against the envy of less happier lands, 
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, 
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, 
Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth, 
Renowned for their deeds as far from home, 
For Christian service and true chivalry, 
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry 
Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's son. 
This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land 
Dear for her reputation through the world, 
Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it. 
Like to a tenement or pelting farm." 



The Home of John of Gaunt 263 

As it was to his second marriage that John of 
Gaunt owed his claim to be king of Castile, so it was 
by his first wife that he became heir to the title of 
Duke of Lancaster. His third marriage, to his con- 
cubine, Catherine Swynford, enriched him with a 
considerable family of natural daughters to be 
legitimated when he had legalized his connection 
with that lady. It is sometimes asserted that Lan- 
caster had more affection for Catherine than for 
either of his other wives, but it is impossible to 
believe he was lacking in love for that gentle and 
beautiful Blanche of Lancaster for whom Chaucer 
wrote his elegiac poem entitled '' The Book of the 
Duchess." In line after line the poet draws such 
an entrancing picture of her loveliness of form and 
feature and her graces of mind and spirit that it is 
incredible to think her husband indifferent to her 
charms. As the sun exceeded all stars and planets 
in beauty, so did she excel all others of her sex ; she 
danced and sang and spoke so sweetly, laughed so 
merrily, was so like to a bright torch whence others 
might take light, that the poet knew not how to 
praise her aright. 

Such qualities must have won the affection of 
John of Gaunt; besides, as hinted above, he owed 
to that fair and gentle wife a great accession of his 
worldy fortune. For Blanche of Lancaster was the 
second daughter and co-heir of Henry, Duke of 
Lancaster, and as she survived her only sister she 



264 Boyal Castles of England 

brought to her husband not merely his title but also 
many great estates, including the Savoy palace of 
London and the stately castle of the town from 
whence her father derived his ducal title. When in 
London John of Gaunt 's chief residence was that 
Savoy mansion he had inherited from his father-in- 
law, which, however, was burnt and destroyed by 
"Wat Tyler in his insurrection of 1381 ; of his many 
strongholds in other parts of England the favourite 
was that Lancaster Castle where his first wife had 
spent her girlhood. 

So meagre are our domestic records of the four- 
teenth century that it is impossible to give any de- 
tails of the home-life of John of Gaunt ; some of 
his accounts have survived, it is true, but if his 
family life in Lancaster Castle employed the pen of 
any chronicler his labours were in vain. Surely, 
however, it may be taken as a proof of his affection 
for the building that legend credits him with many 
additions to the structure, including at least some 
part of the noble gate-tower and that turret known 
as John of Gaunt 's chair. But whatever the extent 
of his alterations and enlargements of his wife's 
ancestral home, the fact that this was *' Gaunt 's 
embattled pile ' ' must always take high rank among 
the most interesting associations of Lancaster 
Castle. 

Besides, this fortress and the domains belonging 
thereto were the occasion of John of Gaunt 's son 



The Home of John of Gaunt 265 

wresting the English crown from Richard II. 
Readers of Shakespeare will be familiar with the 
climax of the death-bed scene between the king and 
*' time-honour 'd Lancaster; " they will recall that 
as soon as Richard was informed that his uncle's 
life was spent he declared his intention of seizing 
all his possessions. That he had promised Lancas- 
ter's son Henry, when he had commanded him into 
exile, that his absence from England should not 
affect his rights to his father's property, counted 
for nothing; he was resolved to confiscate all ** his 
plate, his goods, his money and his lands." Nor 
would he heed the warning of the Duke of York that 
by such treachery he would forfeit the allegiance of 
thousands of his subjects. The sequel is written at 
large in the pages of history. Enraged at such 
dastardly conduct, Henry returned to England, 
quickly rallied the nation to his standard, and, in 
a few months had driven his cousin from the 
throne. 

Although Camden praised Lancaster Castle as 
** fair built and strong " he also added that it was 
** not very ancient." Such a qualification proved 
the limitations of the antiquary's knowledge. Mod- 
ern research has shown that the building occupies 
the site of a Roman castrum and identified the foun- 
dations of a Saxon structure. That the world con- 
querors had a settlement here is proved not only 
by the discovery in various parts of the town of 



266 Royal Castles of England 



1 



numerous urns, coins, and fragments of Roman pot- 
tery, but also by the fact that when some excava- 
tions were being carried out within the castle area 
there was brought to light a small but almost per- 
fect votive altar bearing the inscription: '' To the 
holy God Mars Cocidius Vibinius Lucius, a pen- 
sioner of the Consul, willingly fulfils his vow to 
a deserving object." Tradition used to ascribe the 
erection of the western tower to Adrian and another 
to the father of Constantine the Great, and even if 
those pedigrees are dismissed as myths there still 
remain sufficient reasons for disregarding Cam- 
den's verdict against the antiquity of the build- 
ing. 

Immediately opposite the visitor as he enters the 
chief gateway, in the further corner of the court- 
yard, is a building which takes him back to the last 
decade of the eleventh century. At the battle of 
Hastings the right wing of Norman William's army 
was led by one Roger de Montgomery, who fought 
so valiantly on that memorable day that the Con- 
queror willingly acceded to Roger's request, that 
the earldom of Lancaster should be bestowed upon 
his son Roger the Poitevin. Not long after he en- 
tered upon the possession of his Lancashire estate 
Roger of Poitou set to work building a castle on 
the hill above the River Lune, and the stability of 
his workmanship was such that his keep, sometimes 
called the Lungess Tower, has survived unimpaired 



The Home of John of Gaunt 267 

to this day. During the succeeding century or more 
the castle changed owners several times, passing at 
length into the possession of King John, who is 
credited with having held his court here in 1206 and 
receiving within its walls an embassy from France. 
From that date the castle has been nearly always 
royal property, just as the title of the Duke of Lan- 
caster has been reserved for the occupant of the 
throne. 

Owing to its proximity to the Scottish border, the 
fortress has frequently had to bear the brunt of 
attacks from Scottish invaders, especially during 
the fourteenth century. Thus after the battle of 
Bannockburn the Scots burned the town and par- 
tially destroyed the castle, while in 1322 Robert 
Bruce and his men ' ' came to Lancaster, which town 
they also burnt, save only a priory of black monks, 
and a house of preaching friars." Later still, when 
the Wars of the Roses devastated England, the 
home of John of Graunt played a conspicuous part 
in the deadly rivalry between Yorkists and Lancas- 
trians. That Edward IV was not forgetful of 
those who had fought under his banner is perti- 
nently illustrated by an old record which tells how 
the office of carpenter of the castle was bestowed 
upon one James Calbert in consideration of the fact 
that at one battle he had lost his right hand and had 
his other hand so maimed *' that he may neither 
clothe nor feed himself." One story, indeed, avers 



268 Boyal Castles of England 



i 



that Edward himself was once obliged to seek a 
refuge here. 

Notwithstanding the importance of the strong- 
hold, owing to its command of the northwest coast 
and its usefulness as a defence against raids from 
Scotland, through some unexplained cause it had 
been sadly neglected during the earlier period of 
Elizabeth's reign. At length, however, the queen's 
attention was called to the value of the building as 
" a great strength to the country, and succour to 
the Queen's Justices," and orders were given for 
its complete restoration. A tablet on the battle- 
ments inscribed " E. R. 1585 ' ' gives the date when 
the work was finished and perpetuates Elizabeth's 
only connection with the home of her ancestor. 

That reference to the '' Queen's Justices " is a 
reminder that from the sixteenth century the chief 
use to which the castle was put was that of a prison, 
a service which is continued to this day, for John 
of Gaunt 's home is now utilized for the county 
prison and assize courts. Judging from the old 
records, most of those who made the acquaintance 
of Lancaster Castle as a prison did so as heretics. 
An abbot and many monks and Catholic priests 
were confined here during the troubles which fol- 
lowed upon the Suppression of the Monasteries, 
while in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth 
centuries many alleged witches were immured 
within its walls. Two of the most distinguished 



The Home of John of Gaunt 269 

religious prisoners of the castle, however, were 
Henry Burton and George Fox. The former, who 
was a particularly pugnacious Puritan, was sent 
hither from London after his ears had heen shaved 
off, and confined in " a vast desolate room " beneath 
which were imprisoned five witches who kept up 
" a hellish noise " night and day. That apartment 
— which was probably the Dungeon Tower demol- 
ished in 1812 — seems to have been selected for the 
prison of the founder of the Society of Friends, for 
his description of the room corresponds closely with 
that given by Burton. '' I was put into a tower," 
Fox wrote, " where the smoke of the other prison- 
ers came up so thick that it stood as dew upon the 
walls, and sometimes it was so thick I could hardly 
see the candle when it burned; besides it rained in 
upon my bed, and many times, when I went out to 
stop the rain in the winter season, my shirt was 
wet through with the rain that came in upon me; 
in this manner did I lie all that long winter." He 
did not suffer in vain, for his personal experience 
of that loathsome dungeon stood him in good stead 
when he began his crusade against the hideous con- 
dition of the gaols of England. Hence when John 
Howard visited Lancaster Castle in 1774 so many 
improvements had been made that he was able to 
make a favourable report of that particular prison. 
Between the incarceration of Henry Burton and 
George Fox the home of John of Gaunt had received 



270 Royal Castles of England 

its last baptism of fire. At the outbreak of the civil 
war between Charles I and the Parliament the 
castle was in the hands of the royalists, who con- 
fined there ' ' many honest men who would not com- 
ply to do what they thought." But the tables were 
soon turned on the king's supporters, and despite 
several fluctuations of fortune the fortress re- 
mained in the possession of the rebels. Consider- 
able damage was done to the structure, much of the 
lead being stripped from its roof to replace that 
which had been torn from one of the churches to 
supply material for bullets for Cromwell's army; 
hence at the restoration it became necessary to ex- 
pend nearly two thousand pounds upon its renova- 
tion. Even modern days have added one more royal 
association to the annals of the castle, for the in- 
scription of "V. R. 1851 ' ' on the doorway to the 
turret known as John of Gaunt 's chair recalls the 
fact of Queen Victoria's visit to the home of her 
illustrious ancestor. 



CHAPTER III 

BICHABD III IN MILDER MOOD 
MIDDLEHAM CASTLE 

Richard III is the ogre of the royal line of Eng- 
land. Historians and poets alike have painted him 
in the blackest colours. It is true that in modern 
times he has received the attentions of that white- 
washing fraternity which may be expected to prove 
that Henry VIII was the virtuous husband of one 
wife; but the great volume of testimony in poetry 
and prose condemns him without reserve. 

Perhaps the severest indictment of the usurper 
is that written by Shakespeare, for the chief figure 
of '' The Tragedy of Richard the Third " is de- 
picted not merely as an objective but as a subjective 
monster. The keynote of the impeachment is struck 
in Richard's opening speech, a soliloquy in which 
he makes self -confession of his base character. He 
admits that he was " rudely stamp 'd," that he was 
*' deform 'd," and that he had been sent into the 
world so " unfinish'd," so " half made up " that 
dogs barked at him as he passed them in the street. 
Since, then, he could not prove a lover, he was ** de- 
termined to prove a villain," and announced his 
resolve to be '^ subtle, false and treacherous." 

In the spirit of that self-condemnation the trag- 

271 



272 Royal Castles of England 

edy moves on to its climax, wading its way through 
blood to the inevitable catastrophe. Hence the 
reader is prepared for that harrowing procession 
of ghosts which disturbs Eichard's sleep the night 
before his fatal battle. Those shades of the mur- 
dered dead — Prince Edward, Henry VT, Clarence, 
Rivers and Grey, Hastings, the two Princes, the 
Lady Anne, and Buckingham — suggest that the 
poet accepted without question the assertions of 
those chroniclers who laid upon Richard's shoulders 
the responsibility of all those violent or mysterious 
deaths. Whatever Shakespeare's private thoughts 
of Richard may have been, his dramatic picture of 
that '* bloody wretch " is wholly unrelieved. 

\Nor is the portrait drawn by the historians much 
more attractive. Hume gives an unfaltering narra- 
tive of the tyranny by which Richard seized upon 
his nephew's inheritance, declares that his death in 
battle was too mild and honourable a fate for his 
'' multiplied and detestable enormities," and af- 
firms that ' ' his body was in every particular no less 
deformed than his mind." Lingard thought him 
' ' little better than a monster in human shape ; ' ' 
but the writer who exceeded even Shakespeare in 
his whole-hearted denunciation was that Sir Rich- 
ard Baker whose " Chronicle of the Kings of Eng- 
land " was so popular in the seventeenth century. 
He accepted every story told to his discredit and 
combined them all into this terrific indictment: 



Richard III in Milder Mood 273 

** There never was in any man a greater uniform- 
ity of body and mind than was in him, both of them 
equally deformed. Of body he was but low, crook- 
back 'd, hook-shouldered, splay-footed, goggle-eyed, 
his face little and round, his complexion swarthy, 
his left arm from his birth dry and withered : born 
a monster in nature, with all his teeth, with hair 
on his head, and nails on his fingers and toes. And 
just such were the qualities of his mind. One qual- 
ity he had in ordinary, which was, to look fawn- 
ingly when he plotted, sternly when he executed. 
Those vices, which in other men are passions, in 
him were habits : and his cruelty was not upon oc- 
casion, but natural. If at any time he showed any 
virtue, it was but pretence; the truth of his mind 
was only lying and falsehood. He was full of cour- 
age, and yet not valiant ; valour consisting not only 
in doing, but as well in suffering, which he could not 
abide. He was politic, and yet not wise. And it 
was not so much ambition that made him desire the 
crown, as cruelty ; that it might be in his power to 
kill at his pleasure. And, to say the truth, he was 
scarce of the number of men who consist of flesh 
and blood, being nothing but blood. One miracle 
we may say he did; which was, that he made the 
truth of history to exceed the fiction of poetry, be- 
ing a greater Harpy than those that were feigned. 
He would fain have been accounted a good king, but 
for his life he could not be a good man; and it is 



274 Royal Castles of England 

an impossible thing to be one without the other. 
He left no issue behind him: and it had been pity 
he should, at least in his own image. One such 
Monster was enough for many ages." 

More recent historians have tempered mercy with 
judgment, while some, as hinted above, have at- 
tempted the herculean task of depicting Richard III 
as a normal man and a good king. The well-inten- 
tioned efforts of the latter may be ignored ; the ver- 
dicts of the former are significant by reason of the 
fact that they do not exculpate the king from the 
chief crimes laid to his charge. That he forced 
Anne of Warwick to marry him seems beyond 
doubt ; the evidence that he murdered Prince Ed- 
ward and then his father remains practically un- 
shaken; that he was at least indirectly responsible 
for his brother Clarence's death is generally ad- 
mitted; that he seized the person of his nephew 
and had him and his brother confined in the Tower 
of London cannot be denied. 

xNeither is it possible to question that Richard 
was responsible for those plots which enabled him 
to assume the crown. One of the chief obstacles to 
the realization of his ambition was the loyalty of 
Lord Hastings, a noble whom he had vainly at- 
tempted to win to his side. Hence the ingenious 
plot which had its culmination in a dramatic scene 
in the Tower of London. At a council held there 
Richard declared that Jane Shore had attempted 



Richard III in Milder Mood 275 

his life by witchcraft, and asked what was to be 
done with such offenders. And when Hastings an- 
swered that ' * if " they had been guilty of such con- 
duct they deserved severe punishment, Eichard 
burst out, '' Dost thou serve me with ifs and ands? 
I tell thee they have done it, and that I will make 
good on thy body, traitor! " With that he smote 
upon the table, the signal for the entrance of those 
armed men who had been appointed to drag Has- 
tings out of the chamber to immediate execution. 

But the catalogue of the usurper's crimes is too 
copious for detailed examination. That he must 
be charged with the murder of Rivers and Grey, 
and his two nephews is beyond reasonable doubt; 
if He did not procure the death of his wife that he 
might be free to wed his own niece it is not possible 
to acquit him of casting a slur upon his brother's 
children, while it seems highly probable that he did 
not hesitate to befoul his mother's name by sug- 
gesting that he was his father's only legitimate 
child. 

If the apologists for Richard were wise they 
would confine themselves to that period of his life 
prior to his seizure of the throne, a period which 
shows the tyrant and usurper in a far milder mood. 
And many of the years of that period are closely 
associated with the Yorkshire castle of Middleham, 
that famous stronghold of the illustrious Neville 
family which is the most conspicuous object in the 



276 Royal Castles of England 



1 



beautiful valley of Wensleydale. In fact there is no 
building in all England which revives so many mem- 
ories of Richard III as this stately ruin. 

When his eldest brother Edward was crowned 
king of England as Edward IV, he, the youngest 
son of the Duke of York, was in his ninth year, but 
not too young, in his brother's opinion, to share in 
the good fortune of his family. Hence, in addition 
to being created Duke of Gloucester, he was made 
admiral of England and presented with the manor 
of Richmond in Yorkshire. In view, however, of his 
tender years, he was committed to the guardianship 
of the Earl of Warwick, the redoubtable " King- 
maker," whose chief abode was at Middleham 
Castle. Consequently it was in this lovely valley 
of Yorkshire that the young Duke of Gloucester 
spent some of his most impressionable years, learn- 
ing here the art of war from the accomplished War- 
wick and accumulating that affection for the scene 
of his childhood which was to prompt him to a no- 
table deed in after years. To those years, also, must 
be attributed that knowledge of Warwick's daugh- 
ter Anne which made him aspire to her hand. 

Whether, however, love was an element in that 
ambition is disputed. This was the situation: 
Warwick had two daughters, the elder of whom had 
been married to the Duke of Clarence. As there 
was no male heir, Clarence counted upon succeed- 
ing to all the possessions of his father-in-law, and 



Richard III in Milder Mood 277 

was excusably anxious that his wife's sister should 
not wed a powerful noble. All this accounts for his 
behaviour when he learned that his brother Richard 
was determined to make the Lady Anne his wife; 
so alarmed, indeed, was he that he adopted the ex- 
treme course of hiding his sister-in-law. But 
Gloucester was both a shrewder and more deter- 
mined man than his brother; although Anne had 
been confined to a house in London and disguised 
as a servant, he soon discovered her whereabouts 
and removed her to a sanctuary. Then he pleaded 
his cause with his brother the king, who decided in 
his favour and gave him that portion of Warwick's 
property which included the manor and castle of 
Middleham. 

Under the reign of the '' King-maker " that 
stronghold had been so adorned that it took high 
rank among the most magnificent castles of the 
land. Within its walls Warwick kept almost royal 
state; as Bulwer Lytton wrote, " the most re- 
nowned statesmen, the mightiest Lords flocked to 
his hall: Middleham — not Windsor, nor Shene, 
nor Westminster, nor the Tower — seemed the 
Court of England." But by the time of Richard's 
marriage with Anne of Warwick the castle of Mid- 
dleham had lost its lord, for at the battle of Barnet 
the '* King-maker " had at last paid the price of 
ambition and fallen by the sword. Ignoring the 
claims of Warwick's widow, Middleham, as already 



27S Royal Castles of England 



stated, was awarded to Richard partly as a reward 
for his services and partly as his wife's share of her 
father's estate. And so it happened that the Duke 
of Gloucester returned to the castle of his boyhood 
as its sole lord and owner. 

Here, then, he established his home, and that he 
was greatly attached to the place seems obvious 
from the fact that all the time not occupied in dis- 
charging his various public duties was spent at 
Middleham. Hither he brought his wife, and it was 
within these walls his only legitimate son, Edward, 
was born in 1474. Three years subsequent to that 
event he entered upon an undertaking which his 
apologists cite as an example of his piety, but which 
may also be explained as another illustration of his 
ambition. The undertaking in question was the 
transformation of the parish church of Middleham 
into a collegiate church, a conversion which calls for 
a little explanation for the sake of those unversed 
in ecclesiastical terminology. Perhaps the simplest 
definition of a collegiate church is that it is a mini- 
ature cathedral ; that is to say, its clerical staff con- 
sists of a chapter or college, with a dean, canons 
and other officials, and that it corresponds on a 
small scale to a bishopric minus a bishop. In the 
case of a royal collegiate church, that is, one at- 
tached to a royal palace, its clergy are exempt from 
any ecclesiastical jurisdiction save their own. They 
are, in short, a community and a law to themselves. 



1 



Richard III in Milder Mood 279 

The object of this is obvious ; such a church marks 
out the palace to which it is attached as distin- 
guished above the residences of mere nobles. 

Now, it would appear that the Duke of Gloucester 
was anxious to procure for his church at Middleham 
privileges and immunities rivalling those of his 
royal brother's chapel at Windsor and excelling 
those of any other ecclesiastical institution. This is 
admitted by the historian of Middleham Church, 
though he, it should be added, regarded Richard's 
ambition as a proof of his devotion to religion. 

Whatever the motive, the records show that the 
lord of Middleham spared no pains in effecting his 
purpose. His first step was to secure the necessary 
license from his brother the king, which was soon 
forthcoming ; his next to obtain the approval of the 
Archbishop of York, which also was immediately 
granted ; the other assents had to be procured from 
the rector of the parish, the Archdeacon of Rich- 
mond, and the Pope, all of whom raised no objec- 
tion. Hence on a January day of 1478 an assembly 
took place in the parish church of Middleham, under 
the shadow of the castle, the issue of which was that 
the church was there and then erected into a colle- 
giate charge, with dean and canons all complete. 

Among the documents connected with this trans- 
action are several relating to the practical matter 
of the endowment of the church, by one of which the 
chaplains agreed to forego their rights in certain 



280 Royal Castles of England 

tytlies of hay, etc., in recompense for which the diike 
undertook to pay them annually a specified sum of 
money. Nor was that all. Gloucester also agreed 
for himself and heirs that the dean and chaplains 
were to be presented with two bucks and one doe 
from his parks yearly, and to be allowed the use of 
sufficient grass lands for the grazing of eight oxen 
and two horses. All this certainly presents Eichard 
in a far pleasanter aspect than is depicted in those 
pages of history which tell how he usurped his 
nephew's throne. 

Nearly all the days of the short life of his only 
legitimate son were spent at Middleham. That he 
was born here has already been noted ; and here the 
lad remained when his father set out on that jour- 
ney which culminated in his seizure of the throne. 
Among the Harleian manuscripts is preserved a 
document setting forth some of the household ex- 
penses of Middleham Castle at this time, from which 
we learn that the wages of Edward's nurse were a 
hundred shillings a year, that twenty-two shillings 
were expended in green cloth to make him a gown, 
that a feather for his wear cost five shillings, and 
that a shoemaker was paid thirteen shillings for his 
shoes. We are told, too, the name of his tutor, and 
how much was paid for his primer and psalter and 
the cost of covering both books in satin. And some 
of the entries relate to the expenses of the young 
prince when he was taken to London to attend his 



Richard III in Milder Mood 281 

parents' coronation. Soon after that event the 
youth returned to Middleham, where he died sud- 
denly in the April of 1484, a judgment, as some 
thought, for his father's ruthless murder of his two 
nephews. 

But, according to an old legend, Richard had an- 
other, a natural, son who was also born at Middle- 
ham, a son to whom he gave the name of Richard 
Plantagenet. John Timbs tells the story thus: 
** When Sir Thomas Moyle was building his house 
at Eastwell, in Kent, he observed his principal 
bricklayer, whenever he left off work, to retire with 
a book. This circumstance raised the curiosity of 
Sir Thomas to know what book the man was read- 
ing, and at length he found it was Latin. Upon 
entering into further conversation with his work- 
man, Sir Thomas learnt from him that he had been 
tolerably educated by a schoolmaster with whom he 
boarded in his youth ; and that he did not know who 
his parents were till he was fifteen or sixteen years 
old, when he was taken to Bosworth Field, and in- 
troduced to King Richard ; that the King embraced 
him, and told him he was his son, and moreover 
promised to acknowledge him in case of the fortu- 
nate event of the battle; that after the battle was 
lost he hastened to London, and that he might have 
means to live by his honest labour, put himself ap- 
prentice to a bricklayer." To round off this story 
in the most romantic fashion, we are told that Sir 



282 Royal Castles of England 

Thomas allowed the royal bricklayer to build him- 
self a small house on his estate and spend the re- 
mainder of his life in comparative comfort. 

Although for most visitors to this majestic ruin 
the chief interest is its connection with the less- 
guilty deeds of the last of the Yorkist kings, Mid- 
dleham Castle can boast of other legends which 
carry the imagination back to feudal times. , The 
great keep around which the more modem parts of 
the structure cluster was built by Eobert Fitz Ealph 
in 1191, the daughter of whose grandson carried the 
property into the Neville family by marrying Rob- 
ert de Neville of Raby. A dark story is told of that 
lord of Middleham, to the effect that being caught 
committing adultery with a married woman of 
Craven the enraged husband inflicted on him such 
injuries that he died almost immediately. It is 
sometimes asserted that Robert's own wife was the 
cause of her husband's punishment, but if so she 
repented sufficiently afterwards to found a chantrey 
for the welfare of his soul. This Neville was the 
grandfather of that scion of his race who figures in 
history as '' the Peacock of the North.'* 

Another tradition affirms that Edward IV was 
once a prisoner in the castle he afterwards pre- 
sented to his brother, the adoption of which by 
Shakespeare has given it a long lease of life. It 
seems, however, that there is no truth in that story. 
And modem investigation has also robbed Middle- 



Richard III in Milder Mood 283 

ham Castle of its association with the execution of 
Thomas the Bastard of Fauconberg, one of the 
many victims of the Wars of the Roses. 

As was perhaps natural, after the death of Rich- 
ard III on the battle-field of Bosworth, Middleham 
Castle sunk into obscurity. Even his collegiate 
church, though it would be naturally transferred to 
the crown, was completely neglected by Henry VII. 
The parish records of the seventeenth century re- 
cord the death, in November, 1609, of " Sir Henrie 
Linley, that worthie knight of Middleham Castle," 
and it seems probable that the building continued to 
be occupied for another thirty years. But in 1646 
the Parliamentary committee of York gave orders 
for the fortress to be made untenable lest it should 
be turned into a stronghold for the king, the result 
of which was that much of the building was des- 
troyed by gunpowder, leaving it a prey to those ele- 
ments of nature which have transformed it into its 
present condition. 



CHAPTER IV 

*' A BLOODY PBISON " 
PONTEFRACT CASTLB 

Doubtless the reader of the preceding pages will 
think it questionable whether any other castle, in 
comparison with several of those of which he has 
perused the history, can claim such a distinctive 
title as that at the head of this chapter, yet there 
are adequate reasons for accepting Shakespeare's 
description of Pontefract Castle as a ** bloody 
prison," for the numerous crimes committed within 
its walls give it a bad pre-eminence in the annals of 
blood-stained strongholds. 

Twice is the castle — named * * Pomf ret ' ' be- 
cause, being so pronounced, the word is often thus 
written — made the setting of a scene in Shake- 
speare's historical plays, once to introduce the im- 
prisoned Richard II and again to foreshadow the 
fate of Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan, whom Richard 
III wished removed from his path. The apostrophe 
of Rivers is ominous of his own fate and that of his 
companions : 

" Pomfret, Pomf ret! thou bloody prison, 
Fatal and ominous to noble peers! 
Within the guilty closiu-e of thy walls 
Richard the second here was hack'd to death; 
And, for more slander to thy dismal seat, 
We give thee up our guiltless blood to drink." 
284 



*' A Bloody Prison '* 285 

But the second Richard was not the first of royal 
lineage to whom Pontefract was a fatal prison. In 
the second decade of the fourteenth century the 
castle was the property of Thomas, Earl of Lan- 
caster, the cousin of Edward II, he having obtained 
possession of the building through his marriage 
with the daughter and heir of its previous owner. 
Lancaster, notwithstanding his close connection 
with the king, was one of the most determined op- 
ponents of Edward's insane favouritism, and took 
a conspicuous part in the execution of Piers Gaves- 
ton. And when the infatuated monarch replaced his 
first favourite by the Despensers and persisted in 
his general misgovernment, his cousin became the 
natural leader of the disaffected barons. In reality 
he was a somewhat selfish second edition of Simon 
de Montfort, but as he was the figure-head of the 
discontent of his age he was accepted by the popu- 
lace as a hero-patriot. For a time he was success- 
ful in his opposition to Edward, and in the late 
winter of 1322 he was once more in arms against his 
king. Soon, however, some of his followers de- 
serted his camp, shortly after which he retired to 
Pontefract Castle to hold a council with those who 
remained faithful. The verdict of that council was 
in favour of a retreat further north, to which Lan- 
caster only agreed on being threatened by one of 
his friends. Even that retreat did not save him 
from defeat and capture; the sudden appearance 



2S6 Royal Castles of England 

of a royalist force led to the desertion of more of his 
followers, compelling him to an unconditional sur- 
render. 

In the meantime Edward II had taken possession 
of the earl's own castle of Pontefract, whither — 
Buch was the irony of his fate — Lancaster was con- 
veyed a prisoner and immured in the Swillington 
Tower which he had himself built! This was a 
fearsome dungeon with massive walls and no en- 
trance save through a trap-door in the floor of the 
turret above. Here the rightful lord of the castle 
was confined for several days ere being brought to 
trial in his own hall. Of course that trial was a 
mockery; with Edward for his judge and the De- 
spensers and their friends as his jury, there could 
be but one result. At first Lancaster was sentenced 
to be hung, drawn, and quartered, but, in view of 
his royal blood, that doom was modified to death by 
beheading. In vain did the earl exclaim, '' Shall I 
die without answer? " he was at once silenced by 
an old hood being thrown over his head, and was 
dragged from the hall to be mounted on miserable 
horse and so led to an adjacent hill and decapitated. 
Such, however, was the popular opinion of his char- 
acter that the monks begged his body and gave it 
honourable burial in their priory. Edward must 
have regretted granting that request, for the tomb 
of his cousin became a place of pilgrimage to which 
thousands resorted with costly offerings. The 



" A Bloody Prison ** 287 

mound on which he was slain still bears the name 
of St, Thomas in his honour, while seven hundred 
years after his death a large stone coffin was un- 
earthed in the parish which, because the skull of 
the skeleton was placed between the legs and the 
place of the head occupied by a large stone, was 
believed to contain the veritable remains of the first 
royal victim of Pontefract Castle. 

Reference has already been made to the deposi- 
tion of Richard II by John of Gaunt 's son Henry. 
That event, it will be remembered, was speedily 
followed by Richard's formal renunciation of the 
crown, an act of self-effacement, however, which did 
not prevent Henry from imprisoning his rival. 
The early days of his confinement were divided 
between the Tower of London and Leeds Castle, but, 
for greater security against his being made the oc- 
casion of counter-plots, it was not long ere he was 
removed to the more remote stronghold of Ponte- 
fract. 

Two poets, Shakespeare and Drayton, exer- 
cised their genius in imagining Richard's thoughts 
when he found himself immured in that Yorkshire 
fortress, the dramatist representing the deposed 
king as occupying himself with a comparison be- 
tween his prison and the outer world. In the midst 
of his musing the strains of melody penetrate to 
his dungeon, effecting a change in the tenor of his 
thoughts : 



288 Royal Castles of England 

" Music do I hear? 
Ha, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is, 
When time is broke and no proportion kept! 
So it is in the music of men's lives. 
And here have I the daintiness of ear 
To check time broke in a disorder 'd string; 
But for the concord of my state and time 
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke. 
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me; 
For now hath time made me his numbering clock: 
My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar 
Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch, 
Whereto my finger, like a dial's point, 
Is pointing stiU, in cleansing them from tears. 
Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is 
Are clamorous groans, which strike upon my heart, 
Which is the beU: so sighs and tears and groans 
Show minutes, times, and hours." 

"Whether, in that and other passages, Shakespeare 
attributed to Richard a higher poetic mentality than 
he possessed, must be left to the historians ; Dray- 
ton, in the epistle which he imagined the king wri- 
ting to his girlish queen from his prison at Ponte- 
fract, took a lower, and, doubtless, safer ground. 
Perhaps his object in the following lines was to 
create sympathy for Richard's misfortunes. 

" When quiet sleep (the heavy heart's relief) 
Hath rested sorrow, somewhat less'ned grief. 
My passed greatness into mind I call. 
And think this while I dreamed of my fall: 
With this conceit my sorrows I beguile. 
That my fair queen is but withdrawn a while, 
And my attendants in some chamber by, 
As in the height of my prosperity. 



** A Bloody Prison " 289 

Calling aloud, and asking who is there? 

The echo answ'ring, tells me, ' Woe is there: * 

And when mine arms would gladly thee enfold, 

I clip the pillow, and the place is cold : 

Which when my waking eyes precisely view, 

'Tis a true token, that it is too true. 

As many minutes as in hours there be, 

So many hours each minute seems to me; 

Each hour a day, morn, noontide, and a set. 

Each day a year, with miseries complete; 

A winter, spring-time, summer, and a fall, 

All seasons varying, but unseason'd all: 

In endless woe my thread of life thus wears, 

In minutes, hours, days, months, to ling'ring years. 

They praise the summer that enjoy the South, 

Pomfret is closed in the North's cold mouth; 

There pleasant Summer dwelleth all the year. 

Frost-starved Winter doth inhabit here : 

A place wherein despair may fitly dwell. 

Sorrow best suiting with a cloudy cell." 

By the nature of his poem Drayton was prevented 
from introducing a description of Richard's tragic 
end, but Shakespeare, using the dramatic form, had 
ample license to handle that theme. And it will be 
recalled that he utilized the legend which made Sir 
Pierce of Exton resolve to murder Richard because 
he overheard the new king lament that he had no 
friend to remove his " living fear." Hence the 
speedy journey of Exton and his servants to Ponte- 
fract, the scuffle in Richard's prison, and the swift 
death of the deposed king from a blow with Exton 's 
sword. 

But that is not the only version of the manner of 
Richard's death. According to one chronicler he 



290 Royal Castles of England 

put an end to Ms life by " voluntary abstinence; " 
another assures us that he began to starve himself 
to death, then relented, but on trying to eat found 
himself unable to do so by the closing of the orifice 
of his stomach; while a third authority declares 
that he was wilfully starved by his keepers. Most 
of these theories agree in giving the date of his 
death as the fourteenth of February of 1399. All 
that the cautious modern historian will commit him- 
self to is that '' if " Eichard was murdered the 
probabilities are in favour of his deliberate starva- 
tion by his gaolers. 

Froissart has given us a vivid picture of Eich- 
ard 's funeral procession from Pontefract to Lon- 
don, describing how his body was laid in a litter 
and '' set in a chair covered with black," how four 
horses in black drew the litter, and how the cortege 
included two men in black to lead the car and four 
knights in black as followers. He tells us also that 
the body was exposed in London with its *' visage 
open " and viewed by more than twenty thousand 
people. 

All this seems circumstantial enough, yet for 
many years afterwards there were not a few who 
believed that Eichard was still alive ! The story was 
that he had escaped from Pontefract, made his way 
to the remote isles of Scotland, was there recognized 
and sent to the court of the Scottish king, by whom 
he was kept in honourable captivity until his death 



*' A Bloody Prison" 291 

some eighteen years later. In modern days this 
theory has won the adherence of a sober and con- 
scientious historian, who has cited many startling 
documents in support of his faith. Doubtless the 
problem will never be solved, and pending that event 
the majority will accept one or other of those ver- 
sions of Richard's death which have added " slan- 
der " to the '^ dismal seat " of Pontefract. 

Whatever may have been the fate of the deposed 
king, no comfortable doubt is possible in the cases 
of many others who made the acquaintance of this 
** bloody prison." Notwithstanding the help he 
gave Henry IV in thrusting Eichard from the 
throne, Richard le Scrope, Archbishop of York, for 
showing his sympathy with a revolt against the 
king's spoliation of the church, found that not even 
his ecclesiastical position could protect him from the 
fate of those regarded as traitors. By the decep- 
tion of one of Henry's supporters he was induced to 
disband the little army which had made him its 
leader, and was then hurried off to Pontefract. 
Shortly after the king himself arrived at the castle, 
but when Scrope begged an interview not only was 
that refused but the archbishop's crozier was torn 
from his hands and orders given for his trial, which 
ended in his condemnation and execution. 

Again, shortly after the battle of Wakefield, 
Richard Neville, father of Warwick the " King- 
maker," was conveyed to the castle and there be- 



292 Royal Castles of England 

headed despite the fact that he was seriously 
wounded. With him, too, many other Yorkists were 
butchered in cold blood. 

But the crime which is the greatest ' ' slander ' ' on 
the history of this northern fortress is that in which 
the victims were Earl Rivers, Lord Richard Grey, 
Sir Thomas Vaughan, and Sir Richard Hawte, all 
of whom were put to death in 1483 at the instigation 
of Richard III. Their sole offence was that they 
might have supported the claims of Edward V to 
his father's throne, a reasonable deduction, no 
doubt, in view of the fact that Rivers was the young 
king's uncle and Grey his half-brother. Many as 
were the victims of the ruthless Richard, it is agreed 
that Rivers was the noblest and most accomplished 
of them all. The friend and patron of Caxton, for 
whose printing-press he translated several moral 
books from the French, Rivers seems to have ac- 
cepted his fate with the calm resignation of a man 
who had long meditated on the transitory nature of 
human glory, occupying his last hours in the pen- 
ning of that poignant lament which begins, 

" Sumwhat musying, 
And more mornyng; " 

and when his dead body was stripped he was found 
to be wearing next his skin one of those hair shirts 
affected as a penance by the contrite spirits of 
mediaeval times. Caxton had written prophetically 



1 



'* A Bloody Prison " 293 

of his friend and patron when, in an epilogue to one 
of his translations, he had said of Rivers that *' it 
seemeth that he conceiveth well the mutability and 
the instability of this present life." 

Like Edward IV, the murderer of Rivers was no 
stranger to Pontefract Castle, it having been his 
official residence in 1472 when, while Duke of 
Gloucester, he was responsible for the maintenance 
of order in the north. Hither, too, he came in the 
June of 1484, for there is in existence a treaty of 
peace which was signed here as between Richard III 
and the Due de Bretagne. And subsequent royal 
visitors to '' bloody Pomfret " included Henry VII, 
Henry VIII, James I, and Charles I. 

Two dramatic events in its more modern history 
have yet to be recorded, one belonging to the six- 
teenth and the other to the seventeenth century. 
The first was connected with that Pilgrimage of 
Grace which had its origin in the suppression of the 
lesser monasteries, an attempt at reformation which 
was specially objectionable to the Yorkshire people 
with whom the monks were exceedingly popular. 
As the attack on the religious houses was accom- 
panied by new laws against the sacrament and 
statutes abolishing many of the holidays to which 
country folk had been accustomed for generations, 
the revolt soon became a serious affair, for in a 
short time some twenty thousand of the commons 
had gathered round Robert Aske as their leader. 



294 Eoyal Castles of England 

It was at the head of this army that Aske marched 
upon Pontefract, whither Lord Darcy and the Arch- 
bishop of York had fled for refuge. There was no 
need, however, to attack the building; both Lord 
Darcy and the archbishop had a certain amount of 
sympathy with the rebels; at any rate, whether 
through fear or sympathy, they soon admitted Aske 
to the castle and swore fidelity to the cause he repre- 
sented. 

When it became known that Aske and his men 
were in possession of Pontefract the king's repre- 
sentative in the north at once drafted a proclama- 
tion and dispatched a Thomas Milner, Lancaster 
Herald, to read it at the market cross of the town. 
It was an adventurous undertaking for Milner, but 
he went bravely forward with his task. And at first 
he must have had good hopes of success. '^ When 
I did approach near the town of Pomf ret, ' ' he wrote 
in his report, '^ I overtook certain companies of the 
said rebellious, being common people of the hus- 
bandry, which saluted me gently, and gave great 
honour to the King's coat of arms which I wore. 
And I demanded of them why they were in harness, 
and assembled of such sort ; and they answered me 
that it was for the commonwealth ; and said if they 
did not so, the commonalty and the church should 
be destroyed. And I demanded of them how. And 
they said that no man should bury, nor christen, nor 
wed, nor have their beast unmarked, but that the 



'* A Bloody Prison" 295 

King would have a certain sum of money for every 
sucH thing, and the beast unmarked to his own 
house, which had never been seen." To this Mihier 
replied that they had been misled, reminded them 
how gracious the king had been to them, and finally 
persuaded some three or four hundred to return to 
their homes. 

But that was the extent of his success. No sooner 
had he reached the market cross and began to read 
his proclamation than messengers from the castle 
appeared and commanded him to accompany them 
to that building. On being conducted into the great 
hall he began to explain his mission, but was stopped 
and conveyed to Aske in his own chamber. He 
found the rebel leader demeaning himself as though 
he had been '^ a great Prince " and wearing a 
** cruel and an inestimable proud countenance." 
Once more Milner produced his proclamation, which 
Aske took and read " without any reverence," re- 
marking when he had finished that he would him- 
self give the answer. 

That answer did not lack in bravery. The procla- 
mation, he said, should not be read at the market 
cross, nor anywhere else among his people. All 
they demanded was permission to see the King him- 
self, the elimination of " all vile blood " from his 
council, and full restitution to the church. Would 
he, Milner asked, give him that in writing? '' With 
a great good will," Aske replied, whereupon 



296 



Royal Castles of England 



he handed the herald a copy of his address to the 
people duly signed with his own hand. Remember- 
ing that he had not accomplished the errand on 
which he had been sent, Milner, as a last effort, fell 
on his knees to Aske and begged to be allowed to 
read his proclamation at the market cross; he was 
the King's messenger, he said, and nnder obligation 
to discharge his duty. But Aske would not consent ; 
he should have safe conduct from the town, but if 
he attempted to read the proclamation he would pay 
the forfeit with his life. ' ' And then he commanded 
the Lord Darcy to give me two crowns of five shil- 
lings to reward, whether I would or no; and then 
took me by the arm, and brought me forth of the 
Castle, and there made a proclamation that I should 
go safe and come safe, wearing the King's coat, in 
pain of death." That day's business in that '' dis- 
mal seat ' ' was to have the usual ending for its chief 
actors, for the following year Aske and Milner 
were both executed, the former for his rebellion and 
the latter for bending the knee to the rebel and ac- 
cepting his bribe. 

More than a century later Pontefract Castle fig- 
ured once again, and for the last time, in a rebellion 
against a king. During the early days of the war 
between Charles I and the Parliament the castle 
was in the hands of the royalists, who successfully 
withstood several sieges but were obliged to surren- 
der in the March of 1645. For more than three 



'* A Bloody Prison '* 297 

years the Roundheads were unmolested by their 
enemies, and so low had the fortunes of the royal- 
ists sunk by the summer of 1648 that the garrison 
under Colonel Cotterel was reduced to about a hun- 
dred men. This was the opportunity of the king's 
party. And the man who availed himself of it was 
Colonel John Morris, a soldier of fortune who in 
the earlier stages of the struggle had fought with 
the Parliament troops. 

Morris, however, though an excellent man of war, 
was no Puritan, consequently when the army was 
re-modelled and officered by psalm-singing and 
praying captains he found himself without a com- 
mand, though he was promised employment in the 
future. Retiring to his home near Pontefract he 
meditated avenging himself upon his late comrades, 
at length deciding to attempt the recapture of 
Pontefract for the king. Having enlisted the aid 
of a few kindred spirits he and his little band 
gained admission to the castle disguised as peas- 
ants and quickly obtained possession of the fortress. 
To garrison it with a force of three hundred men 
was a matter of little difficulty, while provisions in 
ample quantity were soon laid in store. Morris had 
accomplished his revenge, and once more Pontefract 
became a source of strength to the royalists of 
Yorkshire. 

So much so, indeed, that no less a person than 
Oliver Cromwell was commissioned to re-capture 



298 



Royal Castles of England 



the stronghold. His summons to Morris was an- 
swered with a cheery defiance, whereupon the fam- 
ous general sent to London for five hundred bar- 
rels of gunpowder, six good battering-rams, demi- 
cannon, and two or three of the biggest mortar- 
pieces available. He realized that he had a formi- 
dable task in hand, for the castle was victualled for 
a year, was well watered and one of the ' ' strongest 
inland garrisons in the kingdom," besides which its 
defenders were " resolved to endure to the utmost 
extremity." Perhaps it was well for Cromwell's 
reputation that he was called away from the siege; 
in any case its final surrender was no credit to 
Cromwell's substitute, for it was imminent starva- 
tion and not the military skill of his besieger which 
compelled the gallant Morris to capitulate at the 
end of March, 1649. Brave to the last, he charged 
through the ranks of the enemy and got safely away, 
only to be betrayed some ten days later. Nor was 
that the end of his adventures ; he escaped from his 
prison and could have eluded his enemies once more 
had he not refused to leave a companion who had 
broken his leg while the two were climbing a wall. 
In fact the doom of '' bloody Pomfret " was upon 
him; there was to be no exemption from that fate 
which had overtaken those who had figured in the 
history of that ill-omened fortress. 



CHAPTER V 

THE PKISONS OF MARY STUART 
CARLISLE, BOLTON, TUTBURY AND SHEFFIELD CASTLES 

On that May evening of the year 1568 when Mary 
Queen of Scots escaped from Lochleven Castle and 
rode through the night a free woman after more 
than ten months of captivity, she little divined that 
in sixteen days her liberty would be at an end. Yet 
such was to be her fate. From the disastrous 
battle-field of Langside she fled to the shores of the 
Solway, where, in the shelter of Dundrennan Abbey, 
she suddenly resolved to cross to the land ruled by 
her cousin Elizabeth. A messenger had been dis- 
patched to ask whether the English officials on that 
farther shore would be willing to receive the Queen 
of Scots if she were compelled to take refuge in 
England, but ere that messenger could return she 
decided to cross the Solway that very day. 

News of her arrival was speedily reported to Sir 
Richard Lowther, who had charge of Carlisle Cas- 
tle as the deputy of Lord Scrope, the Warden of 
the West Marches, and he at once set off to greet 
the fugitive queen and conduct her to Carlisle. 
There was nothing regal about Mary's state; 
Lowther reported that her attire was ' ' very mean, ' ' 

299 



300 Royal Castles of England 

and that as her treasure '' did not much surmount 
the furniture of her robes " he had volunteered to 
pay such expenses as she had in-curred and provide 
horses for herself and retinue. In his letter to the 
court Lowther added that pending instructions 
from Queen Elizabeth it was his intention to detain 
the Scottish Queen in the castle at Carlisle. 

His resolve was soon put to the test. Among 
those who had been informed of Mary 's arrival was 
Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland, a noble of 
pronounced Catholic sympathies, who, as the lead- 
ing peer of the district, imagined he had the best 
right to the custody of the Scottish Queen. On 
reaching Carlisle he, after an interview with Mary, 
stoutly demanded the delivery of her person, but 
Lowther as firmly refused, telling the earl that he 
had already charged himself with her safe custody. 
Such presumption was well calculated to arouse the 
fiery anger of a Percy, and Northumberland hotly 
exclaimed that the Deputy- Warden was " too poor 
and mean a man " to be worthy of such a charge. 
Lowther, however, was master of the castle of Car- 
lisle, and the enraged earl was obliged to return 
home as empty-handed as he came. And a day or 
two later he received a sharp note from court for- 
bidding him to '' meddle with the removing of the 
Queen of Scots." 

Hence instead of becoming the guest of a Catho- 
lic noble Mary found herself detained in Carlisle 



The Prisons of Mary Stuart 301 

Castle. Here, too, she was to remain for nearly 
two months, awaiting the issue of her various mes- 
sages to Elizabeth. But ere many days had passed 
she must have begun to realize that she had only 
exchanged a Scottish for an English prison. For 
eight days after she reached Carlisle there arrived 
at the castle two express messengers from the 
Queen of England, Lord Scrope and Sir Francis 
Knollys, whose conversation was not so comforting 
as she had anticipated. Having written several 
piteous letters to her cousin, Mary had expected 
that Elizabeth would allow her to be immediately 
escorted to her court, a conviction which accounted, 
no doubt, for her action in receiving Scrope and 
Knollys in her presence-chamber, where, as she 
thought, all her friends would hear how her sister 
of England had determined to aid her against her 
rebels. But she was speedily undeceived. The two 
messengers spoke in so serious a strain that she in- 
terrupted their story and took them into the privacy 
of her bedroom to hear its conclusion. There she 
was told that the Queen of England was grieved 
that she could not admit her sister to her presence 
** by reason of the great slander of murder whereof 
she was not yet purged." Thus had the haunting 
spectre of Kirk o' Field followed Mary to English 
soil ; until she could prove that she had no share in 
her husband's death her path back to her throne 
was to be barred by that grim shadow. 



302 



Royal Castles of England 



If in those early days Mary Stuart had insisted 
npon being allowed to return to Scotland it is prob- 
able that no stout objection would have been made, 
for Elizabeth had not then j&nally decided to hold 
her as a prisoner. And, on the other hand, if her 
friends had made a serious attempt at rescue it is 
difficult to see how they could have failed. The 
truth was that Mary was not anxious to return to 
Scotland just then and run the risk of re-capture 
by her enemies ; later, when the danger would have 
been less, it was too late. She was at that moment 
an uninvited guest, yet none the less surely she had 
begun that captivity which was to last nearly nine- 
teen years and end but with her death. 

Scrope and Knollys were uneasily conscious that 
it would not be difficult for their charge to escape 
from Carlisle Castle. The window of her private 
chamber looked towards Scotland; its bars might 
be easily filed, and then, '' with devices of towels," 
a woman of her ^' agility and spirit " could soon 
escape, " being so near the border." It is true a 
watch was set on that chamber, both beneath the 
window that looked toward Scotland and under the 
other window that commanded an orchard, but there 
were day-time as well as night-time dangers to be 
considered. One day she alarmed Scrope and 
Knollys by insisting upon watching her attendants 
play football for a couple of hours on a playing- 
green outside the castle; and, on another occasion, 



The Prisons of Mary Stuart 303 

she went hare-hunting and galloped so fast that 
they were in momentary dread of a rescue by her 
friends from over the border. To make matters 
worse, numerous Catholic gentlemen of England re- 
sorted to her little court at Carlisle and were won 
to her cause by her fascinating manners. 

Even Knollys, stout Puritan though he was and 
loyal to the core to Elizabeth, was in danger of 
succumbing to that spell which few men could re- 
sist. Some two weeks after his arrival at Carlisle 
he could not resist penning that eulogy of Mary 
Stuart which must always take high rank in the 
anthology of her praise. '' This lady and Prin- 
cess," he wrote to Cecil, ** is a notable woman; she 
seemeth to regard no ceremonious honour besides 
the acknowledging of her estate regal : she showeth 
a disposition to speak much, to be bold, to be very 
pleasant, and to be very familiar. She showeth a 
great desire to be avenged of her enemies; she 
showeth a readiness to expose herself to all perils 
in hope of victory; she delighteth much to hear of 
hardiness and valiancy, commending by name all ap- 
proved hardy men of her country, although they be 
her enemies ; and she concealeth no cowardice even 
in her friends." Well might Knollys wonder what 
was to be done with such a woman, and if Elizabeth 
saw that letter it is not difficult to understand why 
she decided to remove Mary to some abode where 
there would be less resort to her presence. 



304 Royal Castles of England 

At first Nottingham or Fotheringay castles were 
suggested as being situated in districts free from 
the taint of popery, but finally choice was made of 
Bolton Castle, a fortress belonging to Lord Scrope, 
standing in a remote part of the Yorkshire valley of 
Wensleydale. But the next difficulty was the re- 
moving of Mary thither. *' It is told me," she wrote 
to Elizabeth, * ' I am to be removed, and I have said 
I will not stir." KnoUys tried persuasion; it was 
Elizabeth's wish, he said, to have her cousin nearer 
her, and to provide her a better abode than that 
" rude and inconvenient place." Mary, however, 
was not to be so cajoled ; unless she were compelled, 
she rejoined, she would not remove one whit 
further into England. How Knollys eventually 
overcame the difficulty may be inferred from his 
letter to Cecil. ' ' Surely if I should declare the dif- 
ficulties that we have passed, before we could get 
her to remove, instead of a letter I should write a 
story and that somewhat tragical ! But this I must 
say for her, that after she did see that neither her 
stout threatenings, nor her exclamations, nor her 
lamentations, could dissuade us from our prepara- 
tion and constant seeming to have authority and de- 
termination to remove her, then like a very wise 
woman she sought to understand, whether if she did 
remove, she might send some of her noblemen into 
Scotland to confer with her party there." By the 
fifteenth of July, then, Mary had reached Bolton 



The Prisons of Mary Stuart 305 

Castle, the second of those numerous strongholds 
associated with her captivity in England. 

Nearly three days were spent on the journey, 
though only some fifty miles as the crow flies, halts 
for the night being made at Lowther Castle and 
Wharton Hall, Bolton being reached just after sun- 
set on the third day. Mary, who was never in better 
spirits than when on horseback, seems to have en- 
joyed the journey through Cumberland, Westmor- 
land and into Yorkshire, for Knollys reported that 
she had been very quiet and tractable and ' ' void of 
displeasant countenance." That custodian was 
greatly relieved when he was able to announce that 
his charge was safely in Bolton Castle. '' This 
house," he assured Cecil, '' appears very strong, 
very fair and stately, after the old manner of build- 
ing, and is the highest walled house I have seen, 
with but one entrance. Half the number of soldiers 
may better watch than the whole could do at Car- 
lisle." Converted from a manor house into an em- 
battled fortress in the late fourteenth century, Bol- 
ton Castle, of which considerable remains yet exist, 
was fully entitled to Knollys' praise of its strength, 
while his eulogy of its beauty was anticipated by 
Leland, who described it as the fairest castle in the 
Richmond district of Yorkshire. 

Here Mary was to remain some seven months, not 
unhappily in the main. Before she left Carlisle her 
brother, the Earl of Moray, had sent her three chests 



306 Royal Castles of England 

of her apparel, but much was yet lacking, which she 
had left behind at Lochleven. The missing articles 
duly reached her at Bolton, and the fact that they 
filled five carts and, in addition, were burden enough 
for four pack-horses would suggest that she had not 
lacked luxuries in her Scottish prison. Nor did she 
fare worse at Bolton. On the contrary, she was 
waited upon with fully as much state as when she 
had been a free queen, with the additional advan- 
tage of not paying her own expenses. She was very 
merry, Knollys reported, and hunted and passed 
her time daily in pleasant manner. Six more cart- 
loads of her belongings had reached her from Scot- 
land, among them being a cloth of state which she 
had had set up in the great chamber of the castle. 
Nevertheless the tradition of the Bolton country- 
side credits her with having made at least one at- 
tempt to escape, for not only is the visitor shown 
the window from which she was let down, but a 
narrow ravine in which she was recaptured bears to 
this day the name of " The Queen's Gap." Per- 
haps that was the attempt to which Knollys referred 
when he wrote: " Touching the practises for her 
stealing away : though I believe she never assented, 
knowing how hard it is for her to escape, yet I mean 
to send for the other fifty of Captain Read's band 
to return hither shortly. ' ' 

So long as the summer lasted, Mary's sojourn at 
Bolton cannot have been other than enjoyable ; she 



The Prisons of Mary Stuart 307 

had ample liberty to ride hunting and hawking, her 
retinue included her favourite servants and many 
of her best friends, and Knollys helped her to pass 
her leisure hours by teaching her to write English. 
With the advent of winter, however, bringing 
** mountain country weather " which soon grew 
'' sharp and boisterous," she must have begun to 
realize that she was really a prisoner once more. 
Not that she restricted her hunting as the weather 
grew cooler; whenever it was dry overhead she 
rode after the hare be the wind never so blustering, 
and often rode so far that her escort was increased 
and more fully armed ; but that with the shortening 
of the days there came the news of the failure of 
that conference at York, which she had hoped 
would have had issue in her restoration to her 
throne. 

And the failure of that conference also resulted 
in Elizabeth adopting a more definite policy as to 
the future of her uninvited guest. As she was not 
to be restored to her throne, diplomacy dictated that 
she should be removed still further from the bor- 
ders of that country where her cause had divided 
the nation into two bitterly hostile parties. As 
early as November, then, the question of her future 
abode began to be debated, but it was not until Feb- 
ruary of 1569 that the actual removal to Tutbury 
took place. That castle on the borders of Stafford- 
shire was decided upon because it was one of the 



308 Royal Castles of England 

residences of the Earl of Shrewsbury, to whose cus- 
tody Elizabeth had resolved to consign her cousin 
of Scotland. 

In the early days of his appointment the earl re- 
garded Elizabeth's choice as a high honour; " now 
it is certain," he wrote to his wife in high glee, 
'* the Scots queen comes to Tutbury to my charge." 
He might have written in a different strain could 
he have foreseen that his guardianship was to last 
for sixteen years and cost him a small fortune. 
Meanwhile, in happy ignorance of that fate, he 
counted himself a fortunate man to receive so high 
a token of Elizabeth's confidence. 

\Some weeks went by, however, before Mary was 
conducted to his castle. It seems there was a diffi- 
culty in providing sufficient horses for her escort 
and the transport of her belongings, besides which 
it was thought necessary to enlist the services of 
various gentlemen to accompany her on her journey 
lest an attempt at rescue should be made. And to 
avoid a repetition of the scene which had marked 
her removal from Carlisle, the English queen wrote 
that as she disliked Bolton she had prepared for her 
another place * ' more honourable and agreeable. ' ' 
On the same day on which Elizabeth wrote those 
words orders had been given to the wardrobe keep- 
ers of the Tower of London to dispatch certain fur- 
niture from thence to Tutbury Castle. The inven- 
tory shows that the articles sent included nineteen 



The Prisons of Mary Stuart 309 

pieces of tapestry, four large and twelve small Tur- 
key carpets, several pairs of curtains, numerous 
chairs and stools and cushions, and a plentiful sup- 
ply of beds and bed linen. In addition there was 
provided a supply of plate for Mary's use, basons 
and ewers, salt-cellars, flagons, bowls, trenches, and 
dishes and spoons. To these must be added a 
lengthy list of kitchen and table utensils and cham- 
ber-hangings and bedding which the Countess of 
Shrewsbury had caused to be fetched from another 
of her lord's castles. All these articles in the bulk 
convey the impression that Tutbury Castle was well 
appointed for the reception of its distinguished 
visitor. 

Although in a direct line the distance between 
Bolton and Tutbury was but a hundred miles, the 
route followed was so de\aous, the roads were so 
foul in those winter days, and the rate of progress 
was so slow that no fewer than ten days were con- 
sumed on the journey. Besides, Mary's health was 
so indifferent as to prevent fast riding, while sev- 
eral of her ladies were even less physically fit for 
that heavy journey. However, on the fourth of 
February the cavalcade reached Tutbury without 
mishap and the Scottish Queen made the acquaint- 
ance of the nobleman in whose charge she was to 
spend so many of her ensuing years. 
N Shrewsbury had already received his instruction 
as to how he was to order his conduct. Although, 



310 Royal Castles of England 

as Mary was a queen, he was to treat her " with 
reverence befitting her degree," he was specially 
warned not to allow her by any pretence to '* gain 
rule over him, or practise for her escape," nor was 
he to permit any to have intercourse with her save 
the members of her own retinue. In the event of 
her being sick and desiring to speak with my Lady 
Shrewsbury, that was to be permitted, yet the host- 
ess of Tutbury was not to consort with her guest 
save " very rarely." And the earl was bidden re- 
vise the list of Mary's servants with the object of 
dismissing any who were superfluous. 
\ From the date of Mary 's delivery into his custody 
Shrewsbury was in constant correspondence with 
Queen Elizabeth or her chief minister, Cecil, report- 
ing sometimes day by day the incidents of his pris- 
oner's life. A hasty glance through those countless 
letters shows that in a short time Mary's retinue 
was reduced from sixty to thirty, that in the main 
she was *' very quiet in outward behaviour," that 
she rode abroad frequently when the weather was 
favourable, that she spent much of her time indoors 
working with her needle, but that, save in the pri- 
vacy of her own chamber, she was rarely out of 
Shrewsbury's sight for half an hour at a time. To 
complete the picture perhaps it should be added that 
Mary does not seem to have been tidy in her habits, 
while those of some of her attendants were posi- 
tively unwholesome. Once, indeed, some of those 



The Prisons of Mary Stuart 3U 

attendants endangered their mistress' health by the 
*' uncleanly order " of their apartments. 

But the most vivid glimpse we have of the Scot- 
tish queen's life at Tutbury Castle is that given by 
Nicholas White in a letter to Cecil, written less than 
a month after her arrival there. White was on a 
journey to Ireland, but on discovering that a visit 
to Tutbury would not delay him more than half a 
day he could not resist the temptation to turn aside 
to make the acquaintance of its famous prisoner. 

As soon as Mary heard of his arrival she came 
into the presence chamber and asked him how her 
good sister Elizabeth did. '^ I told her Grace," 
White wrote, *' that the Queen did very well, saving 
that she was much concerned at the death of the 
Lady Knollys. This much past, she heard the Eng- 
lish service with a book of the Psalms in English 
in her hand, and after service fell into talk with me 
from six to seven o 'clock, first excusing her ill Eng- 
lish. I asked her how she liked her change of air; 
she said, if it might have pleased her good sister 
to let her remain where she was, she would not have 
removed that time of the year; but she was better 
contented therewith, because she was come so much 
nearer her sister, whom she desired to see above all 
things. I asked her Grace, since the weather did cut 
her off all exercise abroad, how she passed the time 
within ; she said, that all that day she wrought with 
her needle, and the diversity of colours making the 



312 Royal Castles of England 

work seem less tedious, she continued so long at it 
till very pain made her give over; and with that 
laid her hand upon her left side, and complained of 
an old grief increased there. She also entered into 
a pretty disputable comparison between carving, 
painting, and working with the needle, affirming 
painting in her opinion for the most commendable 
quality. ' ' 

That White is also to be numbered among the vic- 
tims of Mary Stuart is obvious from his advise that 
'' very few " should be permitted to have access to 
her. ** For besides," he added, '* that she is a 
goodly personage, she hath withal an alluring 
grace, a pretty Scottish speech, and a searching wit, 
clouded with mildness." Of course he added the 
necessary proviso that she was " not comparable " 
to his own sovereign, but it is plain that that obser- 
vation was interjected as a safeguard lest his letter 
should be shown to Elizabeth. The moral of White 
was that as his own affection towards his queen had 
been increased by a sight of her person, so Mary 
might win untold admirers if resort were allowed 
to her. 

Early the next morning ere taking his departure 
from Tutbury White took a stroll in the grounds 
and reported that he discovered two soldiers on 
guard beneath Mary's window. That was a wise 
precaution on Shrewsbury's part, for careful as he 
was of his charge she out-watched all the household 



The Prisons of Mary Stuart 313 

and never went to bed before one o'clock. Later in 
that year the earl was to realize how much it be- 
hoved him to be on the elert, for on a November day 
of 1569 he received this urgent message from Eliza- 
beth: ** Prepare yourself with all the force you can 
possibly make to convey the Scottish Queen from 
Tutbury unto Coventry, and there see her safely 
guarded until we shall signify our further pleas- 
ure." Shrewsbury could hardly have been sur- 
prised to receive such a command. For several 
days, indeed, he had been in a state of alarm. He 
had increased his force by a hundred armed and 
armoured men, had posted scouts on horseback in 
a circuit round the castle, had scoured the country 
six miles round to learn what additional fighters he 
could call upon in case of need, was entrenching and 
strengthening the weak places of the fortress, and, 
above all, notwithstanding that Mary was complain- 
ing of sickness and kept her bed, was looking to her 
as surely as though she were in health and '' prac- 
tised nothing else but for her escape." All this 
alarm and warlike preparation was occasioned by 
the fact that the Earls of Northumberland and 
Westmoreland, the Catholic leaders of the north, 
had raised the standard of rebellion and were 
marching on Tutbury to deliver Mary from prison. 
" But that and all other attempts to set her free 
ended in utter failure. Immediately on the receipt 
of Elizabeth's letter Shrewsbury started for Coven- 



314 Royal Castles of England 

try with his captive, and there she remained for 
little more than a month, when, the rebellion being 
repressed, she was taken back to Tutbury. But 
during the years that yet remained she was to make 
the acquaintance of many another castle — Shef- 
field, and Chartley, and Tixall, and finally the fated 
Fotheringay. In addition there were to be visits to 
Wingfield Manor, Chatsworth, and Buxton, but by 
far the longer period of her captivity was to be 
spent at Sheffield. 

Although there still exist considerable ruins of 
Bolton and Tutbury and Wingfield and Chartley, all 
traces of Shrewsbury's castle at Sheffield have long 
been swept away, while of Fotheringay nothing save 
the site can be identified. During the years she 
spent at Sheffield Mary was occasionally removed 
from the castle to Shrewsbury's manor house in the 
vicinity, a portion of which still stands, though it is 
doubtful whether that relic was part of the building 
used for the Scottish queen's prison. 

Shrewsbury removed to Sheffield Castle with his 
charge in November, 1570, and hardly had they set- 
tled in their new quarters than Mary had a severe 
illness, so severe, indeed, that Elizabeth sent two of 
her own doctors to attend her. In May of the fol- 
lowing year, however, after she had recovered, the 
earl drew up a new set of regulations for her house- 
hold and reduced the number of her servants. All 
who were in any way connected with her personal 



The Prisons of Mary Stuart 315 

wants were ordered to leave her chambers at nine 
o'clock every night and not return until six the next 
morning; none were to be allowed to wear a sword 
save the master of the household; when they went 
hunting or to the butts only four or five were to be 
allowed to carry a bow and arrows; none were to 
ride abroad without special permission; and when- 
ever Mary expressed a desire to walk in the grounds 
notice was to be given an hour before the time she 
contemplated going forth. 

Yet, judging from the scattered allusions of the 
letters of the time, these regulations were not at all 
times stringently observed. A sentimental poet has 
given a harrowing picture of Mary's close confine- 
ment in Sheffield Castle, and assured us that she 
never saw the sun 

" Save when through yon high bars he pour'd a sad, 
A broken splendour." 

As a matter of fact, save on those occasions when 
her liberation was the object of an unusually threat- 
ening plot, Mary was allowed a large amount of 
freedom to order her life as she wished. Her house- 
hold never consisted of fess than thirty persons; 
until the last few tragic days she was allowed to in- 
clude a Catholic priest among her attendants, and 
no restriction was placed on her religious observ- 
ances; wherever she was her chief apartment was 
used as a royal presence chamber; she had perfect 



316 Royal Castles of England 

freedom to conduct a voluminous correspondence, 
either with her own band or by way of dictation to 
her secretary ; she rode much, delighting greatly in 
hunting and hawking and all outdoor pastimes ; and 
for the quieter hours of the day she found pleasant 
occupation in tending her numerous pets or in 
reading or needlework. All these facts should be 
borne in mind by the pilgrim to those castles in 
which she was confined; they will correct the im- 
aginations of the poets and prevent too large a 
draught on the wayfarer's store of sympathy. 
What of pity and lament he has to spare may be 
fitly reserved for that last scene of all, the shapeless 
mounds which mark where once stood that castle of 
Fotheringay in which her life had its tragic end. 



CHAPTER VI 

A BOBDER RENDEZVOUS 

NEWCASTLE CASTLE 

Most of the castles described in the preceding 
chapters, either for their picturesque architecture 
or the beauty of their situation, would amply reward 
the pilgrim for his visit were they not also rich in 
historical associations. Many of them occupy the 
fairest sites in the districts where they stand, while 
the object lessons they provide in the evolution of 
the various styles of building add instruction to 
aesthetic enjoyment. To the contemplative spirit, at 
any rate, there is hardly any pleasure comparable 
to that provided by an hour's meditation among the 
silent ruins of those ancient buildings which are the 
most suggestive memorials of mediaeval life. 

Here and there, however, the wayfarer through 
England lights upon a structure which, through its 
unromantic situation and forbidding appearance, 
taxes to the utmost his ability to revive a picture of 
its past glory. This is notably the case with that 
solemn-looking keep of Newcastle-on-Tyne, the suc- 
cessor of that earlier fortress which gave the name 
of Newcastle to that grimy if flourishing town on 
the banks of the river Tyne. Its aspect is more 
that of a prison than a royal fortress; its massive 

317 



318 Royal Castles of England 

walls are so be-blackened with the defilements of 
countless belching chimneys that it is difficult to 
imagine them as touched with the light of romance. 
Yet the preservation of that stalwart and lofty 
tower is largely owing to its situation ; had it stood 
in some quiet countryside instead of in the midst of 
a thriving city the probabilities are that this, one 
of the finest specimens of a Norman stronghold, 
would have fallen to decay many generations ago. 

What has to be remembered is that this substan- 
tial keep, the chief relic of the great castle that once 
crowned this high ground overlooking the Tyne, was 
for many centuries the abode of English kings when 
they visited their northern dominions, and the sym- 
bol of their power in their absence. " Founded by 
Robert, son of the Conqueror, more firmly estab- 
lished by his brother the Red King, and extended 
by subsequent monarchs," in the heyday of its 
glory its massive keep was surrounded by equally 
massive walls, and while protected on the townward 
side by a deep moat was on the river side rendered 
practically impregnable by the steep declivity on 
whose summit it stood. 

Known in the days of the Romans as Pons ^lii 
owing to the bridge erected over the river by 
Adrian, and in Saxon times as Monkchester, because 
it was the refuge of ecclesiastics when their con- 
vents were ravaged by the Danes, the erection of a 
new stronghold towards the end of the eleventh cen- 




NEWCASTLE - ON' - TYNT: CASTLE. 



A Border Rendezvous 319 

tury caused both those names to be abandoned in 
favour of New Castle, whence the modern form of 
Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The present keep, however, 
is not a survival of that building ; although there is 
not perfect agreement among the authorities, this 
relic may be safely assigned to the closing decade 
of the twelfth century, some experts, indeed, attrib- 
uting its erection to Henry II between 1172 and 
1177. As most of the subsequent additions have long 
disappeared the visitor is not called upon to perplex 
himself with further chronology. 

For a more perfect appreciation of the part this 
fortress has played in English history it must be 
recalled that the county in which it stands, North- 
umberland, was a debatable land for many genera- 
tions. It was, in brief, a buffer county, a veritable 
Tom-Tiddler's ground between the English and 
Scots. In crediting William Rufus with the build- 
ing of a wall round the town, the old chronicler 
Hardyng expressly states that the king's purpose 
was to defend the place against the Scots, while the 
^' castel of the Newe Castell " was reared '' against 
the Scots the country to defend." Hence for many 
generations the place was a frontier settlement, 
sharing in the constant feuds between the two coun- 
tries and was frequently chosen as a rendezvous for 
the gathering of English armies or interviews be- 
tween the rival kings. All this was naturally to the 
enrichment of the historical associations of the cas- 



320 Royal Castles of England 

tie. It accounts, too, for that hardness of character 
which distinguishes the Northumbrian folk, for al- 
though Camden thought the rough and barren 
nature of the county had much to do with * ' harden- 
ing the very carcases of its inhabitants," he also 
realized that the Scots had rendered them ^' yet 
more hardy ' ' by constant raids into their territory. 
Only once did William the Conqueror pass this 
way, on his expedition to Scotland in 1072 ; but his 
son Eobert was here seven years later, and, as a 
barrier against the Scots, founded that castle which 
changed the name of the town. Towards the end of 
that century the fortress was seized and garrisoned 
by Eobert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland, 
who was a leader of the conspiracy to dethrone 
William Rufus. That rebellion was the occasion of 
a visit from the Red King himself, who, having 
gathered together a large force of mercenaries, 
hastened north and laid siege to the fortress in per- 
son. After the death of Henry I the castle was 
captured by King David of Scotland, a feat which 
drew King Stephen hither with a considerable army. 
But a truce was arranged between the two mon- 
archs, Stephen agreeing to cede Northumberland to 
the Scottish king, who thereafter frequently held his 
court at Newcastle. 

If these are somewhat intangible memories, lack- 
ing in picturesque details, the same can hardly be 
said of those associations of the castle which belong 



A Border Rendezvous 321 

to the following century. The problem as to 
whether Northumberland belonged to England or 
Scotland was still unsolved in 1237, at which date 
Alexander II of Scotland and Henry III of England 
had a friendly meeting in the castle by the Tyne. 
But it is when we come to the time of Edward I 
that the royal traditions of Newcastle increase in 
interest and volume. The accident of a failure in 
the succession to the throne of the northern king- 
dom resulted in the English monarch being invited 
to decide between the numerous claimants for the 
Scottish crown, the upshot of which was that Ed- 
ward seized a welcome opportunity to assert a claim 
to be over-lord of Scotland. It will be recalled that 
he gave his decision in favour of John Baliol, who, 
after he had been duly enthroned at Scone, was 
called upon to repeat the homage which he had al- 
ready rendered to the English monarch. This cere- 
mony, which to the Scottish patriot represents the 
utmost degradation his country ever suffered, was 
appointed to take place in Newcastle Castle, where 
Edward celebrated his Christmas of the year 1292. 
On the day following Christmas, then, the new King 
of Scots made his appearance in the great hall of 
the fortress, and there performed the homage which 
stamped him as the vassal of the King of England. 
But all this was so little to the liking of the inde- 
pendent Scots that Baliol quickly discovered the 
thorny lining of his crown. Although he had drawn 



822 Royal Castles of England 

such an envied prize, the result was, as Hill Burton 
points out, to plunge him into a sea of troubles. 
*' It was plain from the first that his people would 
not bear the rule of a servant of Edward. . . . He 
was thwarted in his selection of officers, and had to 
struggle with all the difficulties which subordinates 
can throw in the path of an unwelcome master." 
The consequence was that rebellion soon broke out 
in Scotland, and Edward, who fondly imagined he 
had settled the affairs of that country, was obliged 
to take the field to enforce his claim of over-lordship. 

Hence on several occasions during the last years 
of his life he was often at Newcastle, either when 
setting out on an expedition or when returning. 
Hither he came in the spring of 1300, accompanied 
by his new queen, Marguerite, a maiden of twenty- 
one, and thirty years his junior, and in June of the 
following year he was back again at the head of an 
army designed for the invasion of Scotland. The 
old records show that on this second visit he made 
many offerings to a neighbouring religious house, 
one sum of seven shillings being a thank-offering 
for ' ' the good news which he heard from Scotland. ' ' 
Again, in the May of 1303, the indomitable king 
was once more at Newcastle with his queen, leaving 
her, however, to the care of the prior of Tynemouth 
when he began his march over the border. 

While the Newcastle traditions of Edward I re- 
dound to his fame as a soldier, and were associated 



A Border Rendezvous 323 

either with his march toward or return from victory, 
those of his son Edward II are fully in harmony 
with the failure he made of his career as a king and 
a general. Almost the first visit he paid to the town 
was as a refugee from his angry barons. As pre- 
vious chapters have shown, all the efforts of those 
lords to separate him from his worthless favourite 
Piers Gaveston had been in vain, and now, in the 
spring of 1312, he had to fly to this stronghold from 
the revolt led by the Earl of Lancaster. Of course 
the wretched Gaveston bore him company, and the 
king's accounts for this period show how generous 
he was with his rewards to the doctors who attended 
upon the favourite for some ailment or other. 
Shortly after his arrival Edward commanded the 
Bishop of Durham to provide stores for the castle, 
his demands including six hundred quarters of 
corn, eight hundred quarters of malt, one thousand 
quarters of oats, two hundred fat animals, five hun- 
dred sheep, and two hundred pigs! He evidently 
expected a long sojourn in the fortress, but in a 
couple of weeks the news of the approach of the 
Earl of Lancaster sent him flying again, and this 
time in such haste that Gaveston 's baggage, contain- 
ing many jewels of great value, was left behind as 
spoil for the rebels. 

Hardly less ignominious is the memory of Ed- 
ward's next visit to his Tyneside castle, which took 
place in the early summer of 1314. Once more a 



324 Royal Castles of England 

huge army had been summoned to take the field 
against Scotland, the result of which was the gather- 
ing here and at Berwick of a hundred thousand men, 
forty thousand of whom were mounted. But if 
Edward indulged any anticipations of repeating his 
father's prowess against the Scot, he was swiftly 
undeceived, for in less than a month he was back 
at Newcastle again, with the shame of the defeat of 
Bannockburn for ever attached to his name. 

In truth it is not until Edward II had been de- 
posed from a throne he disgraced and his valiant 
son Edward III had succeeded to the kingship that 
an English patriot can take any pride in the four- 
teenth-century royal traditions of Newcastle. One 
of the most stately of the visits of Edward III was 
that he paid during the Whitsuntide of 1334, when 
a special meeting between the kings of the two 
countries was arranged. Another Baliol occupied 
the throne of Scotland, but he cared as little for the 
rights of the land he ruled as his father had done ; 
hence when he was summoned to Newcastle to pay 
homage to the king of England he not only raised 
no objection but also surrendered large tracts of 
Scottish territory to his over-lord. That the cere- 
mony of homage might be the more impressive it 
was performed in the presence of a great gathering 
of the lords and commons of both countries. 

Nor was that the only result of Edward's Whit- 
suntide visit to his city by the Tyne. It appears 



A Border Rendezvous 325 

that for some years little attention had been paid 
to the upkeep of his castle and the repair of the 
walls of the town. The latter the king ordered to 
be strengthened at his own expense ; concerning the 
former he gave instructions for an examination to 
be made and the necessary renovations carried out. 
The inspection of the building revealed many de- 
fects, as the lack of shutters for the windows of the 
king's great hall and the need of re-leading for the 
roof of the king's private chamber. In the end it 
was estimated that the needful repairs would cost 
about a hundred pounds, a considerable sum for that 
period inasmuch as it has been calculated that a 
penny of the fourteenth century is of equal value 
to a shilling of modern currency. 

For several years in succession, dating from 1334, 
Edward III was a constant visitor to Newcastle, 
generally at the head of an army for the invasion 
of the northern kingdom. To one of these years, 
1342, belongs a feat of arms which approved the 
reckless bravery of the castle defenders. In the 
month of June David Bruce of Scotland suddenly 
appeared before the town with a large force, but 
the garrison was ready to give a good account of 
their charge. " The captain," says a record of the 
time, *' was Lord John Nevil of Hornby, a person 
of great conduct and bravery, who, resolving to give 
the young king of Scotland a taste of the English 
valour as soon as might be, commanded two hun- 



326 Royal Castles of England 

dreci lances to make a sally very early next morning. 
These dashing suddenly, with great fury, into the 
Scottish host on that part where the Earl of Murray 
was, took the earl himself naked in bed, dragged 
him away naked out of his tent, and so, having slain 
several of his men, and won much booty, they re- 
turned all safe into the town with great joy, and de- 
livered the Earl of Murray prisoner to their captain. 
This daring enterprise having alarmed the whole 
camp, the Scots ran like madmen to the barriers of 
the town, and began a fierce assault, which they con- 
tinued a great while, with much pertinency. But 
they gained little and lost much. For there were 
many good men of war within, who defended them- 
selves with much resolution and discretion, so that 
the Scots were at last fain to leave off their attack. ' ' 
The lesson was not lost on the Scottish king ; deem- 
ing it dangerous to dally in the neighbourhood of 
such daring spirits he withdrew his army to try his 
fortune elsewhere. 

Four years later he was back again. Learning 
that the valiant king of England was absent on a 
campaign in France, King David seems to have 
imagined that the invasion of the southern kingdom 
would prove an easy task, but he had not taken ac- 
count of the warlike spirit of Edward's queen, 
Philippa of Hainault. As soon as news of the 
threatened invasion reached her she hastened north 
to Newcastle to await the assembling of an army. 



A Border Rendezvous 827 

The nobles and their retainers were not long in 
obejdng Philippa's summons; in Froissart may be 
read how they '^ came daily from all parts," and 
how the Scots, on learning of the assembly, gathered 
in force around Newcastle, and how King David 
sent in a message to the effect that if they would 
come out into the field he would fight with them 
gladly. '' The lords and prelates of England," con- 
tinues Froissart, '' said they were content to adven- 
ture their lives with the right and heritage of the 
king of England their master. Then they all issued 
out of the town, and were in number a twelve hun- 
dred men of arms, three thousand archers, and seven 
thousand of other with the Welshmen. Then the 
Scots came and lodged against them near together : 
then every man was set in order of battle : then the 
queen came among her men and there was ordained 
four battles, one to aid another. . . . The queen 
went from battle to battle desiring them to do their 
devoir to defend the honour of her lord the king of 
England, and in the name of God every man to be 
of good heart and courage, promising them that to 
her power she would remember them as well or 
better as though her lord the king were there per- 
sonally. Then the queen departed from them, 
recommending them to God and to Saint George." 
Modern criticism has eliminated Queen Philippa 
from Froissart 's story, but there is no gainsaying 
the fact that that sally from Newcastle culminated 



328 Royal Castles of England 

in the battle of Neville's Cross, the utter defeat of 
the Scots, and the capture of their king and a great 
company of his nobles. 

Nor should it be forgotten that the fourteenth- 
century annals of Newcastle connect the story of 
the fortress by the Tyne with the stirring ballad of 
" The Battle of Otterbourne. ' * In the late summer 
of 1388 the turbulent Scots of the border, taking 
advantage of the divisions among the English con- 
sequent upon the weak rule of Richard II, decided 
upon another invasion. The details of the story are 
somewhat confused, but, according to the version of 
the famous ballad, the Earl of Northumberland, 
otherwise the illustrious Hotspur of border legend, 
immediately hurried to the castle of Newcastle to 
await the gathering of his forces. The Scots, with 
the Earl Douglas at their head, followed fast in his 
track, and the ballad tells how from without the 
walls of the town they cried, 

*.* Sir Harry Percy, and thou beist within; 
Come to the field, and fight." 

No noble, much less a Percy, would decline such a 
challenge, so it was agreed between the two leaders 
that their forces should meet at Otterbourne. 
Which side won the victory is disputed to this day, 
but that Hotspur was merely taken prisoner while 
Douglas was killed are facts beyond question. 
During the fifteenth century several of the kings 



A Border Rendezvous 329 

of England visited their Tyneside fortress, Henry 
IV being here with a large army in 1400, and again 
five years later to repress a rebellion headed by the 
Earl of Northumberland. Being so far north the 
stronghold played little part in the Wars of the 
Eoses, though on one occasion Henry fled hither for 
refuge from the victorious Edward IV. The sover- 
eign who ended the feuds of the rival houses by 
wedding Edward's daughter, Henry VII, came to 
Newcastle in the third year of his reign, but with 
his death, in 1509, there came a long break in the 
royal traditions of the town. It should be remem- 
bered, however, that six years earlier the old castle 
looked down upon a notable regal procession, for in 
1503 the Princess Margaret, eldest daughter of 
Henry VII, had a triumphant reception here when 
on her way to wed James IV of Scotland, she being 
received at the bridge near the fortress by a con- 
course of nobles, ecclesiastics, town officials and 
commons, all attired in gorgeous raiment. Choirs 
of children arrayed in surplices sang ** melodious 
hymns " and played on ** instruments of many 
sorts," while the streets were so gay with bunting 
and crowded with people '' that it was a pleasure 
for to see." The young bride-elect was not lodged 
in the castle, but in one of the religious houses of 
the town, a significant proof that the romantic days 
of the ancient fortress by the Tyne were ended. 



CHAPTER VII 

** norham's castled steep " 

• NORHAM CASTLE 

As this pilgrimage to the royal castles of Eng- 
land began at the fortress which guards the heights 
of Dover and in far-off days was the defence of the 
southern shore from foreign foes, it is fitting that 
it should end beside that ruined castle which, on the 
banks of the Tweed, is a memorial of those distant 
generations when *' Norham's castled steep " was 
a bulwark against the raids of the border Scots. 
Commanding that pass on the river once known as 
Ubbanford, and situated but a few miles from Ber- 
wick, the possession of Norham was for several cen- 
turies stoutly contested by Scots and English, 
though from the time when a castle was reared on 
this rocky eminence the fortune of war generally 
turned in favour of the southerners. There were, 
it is true, several occasions from the twelfth to the 
fourteenth century when the Scots captured the 
fortress, but in no instance were they able to hold 
it for longer than a few days. 

Romantic in its situation and history, it has been 
the inspiration of many poets, none of whom, how- 
ever, have been more successful than Sir Walter 
Scott in investing it with the glamour of the olden 

330 



" Norham's Castled Steep " 331 

time. That his picture of the fortress shows it in 
the pensive evening hour adds greatly to the charm 
of the opening stanzas of *' Marmion." 

J' Day set on Norham's castled steep, 
And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep, 

And Cheviot's mountains lone: 
The battled towers, the donjon keep. 
The loophole grates, where captives weep, 
The flanking walls that round it sweep, 

In yellow lustre shone. 
The warriors on the turrets high, 
Moving athwart the evening sky, 

Seem'd forms of giant height: 
Their armour, as it caught the rays, 
Flash'd back again the western blaze, 

In lines of dazzUng light. 

" Saint George's banner, broad and gay. 
Now faded, as the fading ray 

Less bright, and less, was flung: 
The evening gale had scarce the power 
To wave it on the Donjon Tower, 

So heavily it hung. 
The scouts had parted on their search, 

The Castle gates were barr'd; 
Above the gloomy portal arch. 
Timing his footsteps to a march, 

The Warder kept his guard; 
Low humming, as he paced along. 
Some ancient Border gathering song." 

Such was the aspect of the castle, to the imagina- 
tion of the Wizard of the North, in the early fif- 
teenth century ; such had it appeared, too, for nigh 
four hundred years. For at the period of Scott's 
tale of Flodden Field the fortress by the Tweed 



332 Boyal Castles of England 

was already a venerable building, its foundation 
having dated back to the first quarter of the twelfth 
century. 

Two martial prelates were responsible for its 
erection. In this northern region of the county of 
Northumberland for many miles along the bank of 
the Tweed the land was the property of the see of 
Durham, two of the early bishops of which were 
notable examples of that blend of churchman and 
warrior which was a somewhat common type during 
the reigns of the Norman kings. First on the list 
came Rannulf Flambard, that bishop-minister of the 
Red King whose activities as a builder have a last- 
ing memorial in the impressive nave of Durham 
Cathedral. Not content with rearing that superb 
church at the seat of his see, nor with renewing the 
walls of Durham, he also built the first castle on his 
lands at Norham as a protection against the border 
Scots. Flambard was so eager a builder that, in the 
words of his biographer, he '^ passed from one 
work to another, reckoning nothing finished unless 
he had some new project ready." In less than a 
decade, however, his castle of Norham was seized 
by King David of Scotland and partially disman- 
tled. 

In the second half of the twelfth century, how- 
ever, the see of Durham was occupied by another 
castle-building prelate, Hugh de Pudsey by name, 
who restored the work of his predecessor and reared 



" Norham's Castled Steep " 333 

that massive keep the ruins of which have survived 
to this day. A man of enormous wealth and equal 
ambition, Bishop Pudsey, who was also Earl of 
Northumberland, surrounded himself with almost 
kingly state, a worthy predecessor of that martial 
prelate whose fame is associated with the most 
notable event in Norham's history. 

That the building as restored by Hugh de Pudsey 
was a more substantial structure than that erected 
by Flambard seems a reasonable inference from the 
fact that it withstood a forty days' siege by King 
John when he sought to revenge himself on those 
Northumbrian lords who had tendered their homage 
to the king of the Scots. There were other occa- 
sions, however, when John Lackland was more suc- 
cessful in gaining an entrance to Norham Castle, 
for it was within its walls he arranged a treaty with 
his rival of the northern kingdom, while another 
time he resided here for a few days preparatory to 
an invasion of Scotland. 

But by far the most famous of the royal tradi- 
tions of Norham belongs to the last decade of the 
thirteenth century. In the preceding chapter brief 
reference was made to that episode in the career of 
Edward I which gave him the opportunity to claim 
the over-lordship of Scotland, but as the principal 
events of that occasion transpired at Norham they 
need to be described at greater length. 

An accident on a March night of 1286 deprived 



334 Royal Castles of England 

Scotland of its king. Though warned by his attend- 
ants that the night was too dark and the road too 
dangerous for the journey he had set himself, Alex- 
ander III persisted in galloping forward. And 
suddenly his horse slipped, pitching its rider over 
a rock to instant death. The son and daughter of 
the king had died before that fatal night, the latter, 
however, leaving a daughter now three years old. 
That infant was the only direct heir to the Scottish 
throne, but four years later, while on her voyage to 
Scotland to be betrothed to the son of Edward I, 
she too was claimed by death. It was at this junc- 
ture that one of the guardians of Scotland appealed 
to the English king for his assistance in selecting 
a ruler for the monarch-less land. Edward at once 
consented to a proposal which afforded him so ex- 
cellent an opportunity to enforce his claim of over- 
lordship, and at once issued orders to his barons to 
meet him at Norham Castle on the third of June, 
1291. And, at the same time, he invited the nobles 
and prelates of Scotland to join him in a conference 
at the same place some twenty days earlier. 
^ On the third of May, then, this castle by the 
Tweed was the scene of a notable assembly. The 
leading Scottish lords and prelates accepted Ed- 
ward's invitation, and the English king was accom- 
panied by many of his chief nobles and churchmen, 
prominent among the latter being Antony Bek, that 
magnificent Bishop of Durham whose ordinary ret- 



*' Norham's Castled Steep *' 335 

inue consisted of a hundred and forty knights. 
The assembly was held in the king's chamber of the 
castle, the proceedings being opened by an address 
from the English monarch, read on his behalf by 
his chief justice, Eoger Brabazon. That address 
commented in appropriate terms on the perplexing 
and dangerous situation which the failure of the 
royal line had created in Scotland, explained that 
Edward of England had *' travelled from remote 
parts " to do justice to such claimants as should ap- 
pear, but insisted that as a preliminary step it was 
essential that all present should acknowledge the 
over-lordship of the English sovereign. '* Where- 
fore," were the final words of the address, '' our 
lord the king, for the due accomplishment of this 
design, doth require your hearty recognition of his 
title of Lord Paramount of the kingdom of Scot- 
land." 

Such a climax had not been expected by the Scots ; 
all they could do, however, was to object their igno- 
rance of such a right ; as their land was without a 
king, it was impossible for them to give a definite 
answer. '' By Holy Edward! " cried the English 
monarch, ** whose crown I wear, I will either have 
my rights recognized, or die in the vindication of 
them! " It was known that he had summoned his 
army to meet him at Norham three weeks later; 
besides, the castle in which they were met was a 
suggestive symbol of the power which Edward could 



336 Royal Castles of England 

exert against them; hence all the bewildered Scots 
could do was to plead for a little time to consult the 
absent nobles and prelates. So three weeks ' respite 
was granted, at the expiry of which Edward would, 
he knew, be able to enforce his claim by an appeal 
to arms. 

So, three weeks later, another gathering took 
place in this borderland, but, on that occasion, the 
assembly was held in a meadow on Scottish soil on 
the opposite bank of the river. Yet as the scene was 
dominated by the frowning walls of Norham Castle 
that adjourned conference belongs of right to the 
history of the border fortress. In that field be- 
neath the shadow of this romantic pile there ap- 
peared no fewer than ten claimants to the vacant 
throne of Scotland, all of whom, for various reasons, 
freely agreed to acknowledge Edward as their liege 
lord and accept his decision as final. All these are 
sad memories to the Scottish patriot, for they are 
associated with the most critical period of his coun- 
try's history and culminated in that homage by John 
Baliol which he regards as the blackest stain on his 
national annals. 

Indeed there is little in the history of Norham 
Castle in which the perfervid Scot can rejoice. He 
cannot but recall that when James IV espoused the 
cause of the impostor Perkin Warbeck and laid siege 
to this castle he was held at bay by Bishop Fox of 
Durham for the space of fifteen days and had to 



" Norham's Castled Steep *' 337 

hurry away when he heard the Earl of Surrey was 
approaching. The bishop had so strongly fortified 
and well provisioned the fortress that he would 
probably have beaten off the Scottish king single- 
handed. Sixteen years later James was back at 
Norham again, this time successful in his assault, 
but successful at a terrible cost. For one of the 
chief charges against the victim of Flodden Field 
is that he frittered away his time and provisions by 
taking this and several other border castles, thus 
affording the Earl of Surrey ample time in which 
to assemble the army which inflicted so terrible a 
defeat on the Scots at Flodden. 

There are not many warlike achievements re- 
corded to the credit of Edward II, but one of the 
few links his name with this stronghold, which he 
recaptured from the Scots in 1322. But it is in the 
reign of that weakling monarch that the chroniclers 
place the feat of arms which is the most romantic 
of all Norham's traditions. As told by Leland, this 
story narrates how in the days when the Scots over- 
ran the border and ravaged the marches of North- 
umberland the castle of Norham was in the custody 
of one Thomas Gray, to whom there came William 
Marmion, a brave knight whose lady love had bid- 
den him go to '^ the dangerest place in England '* 
and there win fame for his helmet. Four days after 
his arrival at Norham a band of Scots from Berwick 
appeared before the castle. This was Marmion 's 



338 Royal Castles of England 

opportunity to approve Ms valour. " Sir Knight," 
said Gray, ' * ye be come hither to fame your helmet : 
mount upon your horse, and ride like a valiant man 
to your foes even here at hand, and I forsake God 
if I rescue not thy body dead or alive or I myself 
will die for it." "With that Marmion dashed into 
the midst of the Scots single-handed, but though he 
made a brave fight he was at last unseated and in 
peril of his life. Then Gray and his garrison sal- 
lied forth, scattered the Scots right and left, cap- 
tured fifty of their horses, and returned trium- 
phantly to the castle with their courageous guest. 

Yet it is not that Marmion, but the fictitious Mar- 
mion created by the imagination of Scott, that the 
visitor to Norham Castle mostly remembers. 
Though silent now, and falling to decay, he can re- 
picture its walls in that sunset gleam as Lord Mar- 
mion rode to the castle gate, can hear the warning 
blast of the warder's bugle-horn, catch the echo of 
the lowered draw-bridge, and follow the hero as he 
passed through the courtyard to the castle-hall. He 
can see the gallant squires and men-at-arms and 
yeomen who followed in Marmion 's train, and note 
how minstrels and trumpeters and heralds form a 
lane for his procession to the dais of the banquet- 
hall. He becomes, too, a spectator of that welcom- 
ing feast, hears the song of the harper, sees the 
*' pasties of doe " burdening the tables and the 
wassail-bowl passed from hand to hand. And so he 



" Norham's Castled Steep '* 339 

watches until the midnight draught of wine and 
spices gives the signal for repose, and as he turns 
away may even catch a faint echo of the footsteps 
of the guard '* pacing his sober round." This is no 
royal legend, it is true, but it is a seemly climax to 
those regal memories awakened by his pilgrimage 
over the face of England, for the story of Marmion 
exhales the atmosphere of the romantic past. 



THE END. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



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341 



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INDEX 



Albini, waUam de, 49, 50, 51, 190. 
Alexander II, 321. 
Alexander III, 334. 
Alfred the Great, 81. 
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 107, 143. 
Anne of Warwick, 274, 276, 277, 

278. 
Anne, Queen, 125, 137. 
Arthur of the Round Table, 119. 
Arthur, Prince, HI. 
Arthur, Prince of Wales, 228, 229, 

230. 
Arundel, Earl of, 165, 166, 174. 
Arundel, Thomas, 62, 63. 
Ashbvu-nham, John, 96, 97, 98, 

99 102. 
Aske, Robert, 293, 295, 296. 
Aster, WUliam Waldorf, 28. 
Athelstan, 81. 

Bacon, Francis, 157, 158. 
Badlesraere, Lady, 59, 60, 61. 
Badlesmere, Lord, 59, 60, 61. 
Baker, Sir Richard, 187, 272. 
Baliol, John, 321, 336. 
Bankes, Lady, 114, 115, 117. 
Bankes, Sir John, 113, 114. 
Bannockburn, Battle of, 267, 324. 
Barnet, Battle of, 153. 
"Battle of Otterboume, The," 

328. 
Beattie, William, 50. 
Beaufort, Jane, 126. 
Becket, Thomaa h, 68, 69, 70, 71. 

73, 75, 76. 
Bek, Antony, 334. 
Berkeley Castle, 205-217. 
Berkeley, Henry de, 214, 216. 
Berkeley, Lady Anne, 214, 215, 

216. 
Berkeley, Sir John, 96, 98, 102. 



Berkeley, Thomas de, 209, 210, 

211, 212, 213, 214. 
Bigod, Roger, 176. 
Blanche of Lancaster, 263. 
Boadicea, 141. 
Boccaccio, 208. 
Boleyn, Anne, 20, 21, 28, 30, 31, 

32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 

40, 215. 
Boleyn, Sir Geoffrey, 31. 
Boleyn, Sir Thomas, 31, 32, 33, 

34. 
Bolton Castle, 304^307. 
Boniface, Archbishop, 6. 
Book of Sports, The, 259. 
Bosworth, Battle of, 281, 283. 
Bourchier, Archbishop Thomas, 

78. 
Brabazon, Roger, 335. 
Brandon, Charles, 12. 
Bret, Richard le, 73. 
Bridge water. Earl of, 233. 
Broc, Randulf de, 70, 71, 73, 74, 

76. 
Bruce, David, 325, 326. 
Bruce, Robert,, 207. 
Buckingham, Duke of, 257. 
Bulkeley, Richard, 10, 11. 
Burgh, Sir Hubert de, 8. 
Burghle3o Lord, 24, 153, 155. 
Burley, Captain, 102. 
Burton, Henry, 268, 269. 
Burton, Hill, 322. 
Butler, Samuel, 234. 

Caesar, Julius, 1, 2. 

Caligula, 2. 

Camden, William, 30, 41, 47, 82, 

120, 195, 207, 218, 237, 265, 

266, 320. 
Carisbrooke Castle, 93-105. 



345 



346 



Index 



Carlisle Castle, 299-303. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 68. 

Castle Rising, 178-191. 

Catherine of Aragon, 14, 20, 21, 
22, 38, 40, 164, 228, 229, 231. 

Cavendish, George, 33. 

Caxton, William, 292. 

Cecil, Sir WilUam, 153, 154, 304, 
310, 311. 

Charles I, 25, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 
99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 114, 
130, 131, 146, 208, 237, 240, 
241, 242, 243, 244, 269, 296. 

Charles II, 26, 27, 53, 103, 125, 
134, 135, 136, 206. 

Charles V, 11, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 
20, 53, 131. 

Charles le Bel, 183, 184. 

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 124, 263. 

" Chronicle of the Kings of Eng- 
land," 187, 272. 

Churchyard, Thomas, 237. 

Clarence, Duke of, 220, 274, 276. 

Clarendon, Earl of, 237, 242. 

Claudius, 140, 141. 

Cleves, Anne of, 22, 23, 53. 

Cobham, Lord, 24, 65. 

Coel, 142. 

Colchester Castle, 139-147. 

" Comus," 233. 

Constantine the Great, 142. 

Constantius Chlorus, 142. 

Corbeil, Archbishop William of, 

. 47,48. 

Corfe Castle, 106-118. 

Cotterel, Colonel, 297. 

Courtenay. Archbishop, 77, 78. 

" Courties^ Triflings," 207. 

Cranborne, Lord, 255. 

Cranmer, Thomas, 76. 

Crew, Sir Randolph, 150. 

Cromwell, Oliver, 93, 94, 95, 96, 
99, 100, 133, 234, 248, 297, 
298. 

Culpeper, Lord, 55. 

Culpeper, Sir Thomas, 59, 61. 

" Cumnor Hall," 192, 193. 

Cunobelinus, 140. 

"CymbeUne," 140. 

Darcy, Lord, 294, 296. 
Darnley, Lord, 251. 
David, 320, 332. 

Despenser, Hugh, the younger, 
58, 180, 181, 184, 285. 



Dinan, Sir Joyce de, 232. 
Domesday Book, 81, 100. 
Douglas, Earl, 328. 
Dover Castle, 1-27. 
Drake, Sir Francis, 206. 
Drayton, Michael, 66, 180, 287, 

288, 289. 
Dudley, Guilford, 164. 
Dudley, John, 163, 164, 165, 168, 

169, 170, 171, 173, 174. 
Dudley, Lord John, 215. 

Earle, Sir Walter, 116. 
Edgar, 106, 108, 109, 110. 
Edward, Prince, 278, 280. 
Edward the Confessor, 3, 4, 81, 

119, 120. 

Edward the Martyr, 107, 108, 
110, 111. 

Edward I, 57, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 
321, 322, 333, 334, 335, 336. 

Edward II, 9, 58, 60, 61, 62, 178, 
179, 180, 181, 183, 184, 185, 
186, 195, 206, 209, 210, 211, 
212, 285, 286, 323, 324, 337. 

Edward III, 29, 122, 123, 127, 
183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 190, 
212, 257, 324, 325, 326. 

Edward IV, 124, 219, 220, 221, 
222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 
232, 267, 276, 282, 293. 

Edward V, 224, 225, 226, 227. 

Edward VI, 129, 130, 163, 164, 
165, 166, 169, 172. 

Edward VII, 125, 217. 

Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester, 
65, 66, 67. 

Eleanor, Princess, 111, 112. 

Eleanor of Castile, 57. 

Elfrida, 108, 109, 110. 

Ehzabeth, Princess, 103, 104, 105, 

Elizabeth, Queen, 24, 53, 113, 

120, 121, 124, 154, 193, 197, 
198, 199, 200, 202, 203, 206, 
216, 233, 253, 255, 268, 301, 
302, 307, 308, 312, 313, 314. 

Elizabeth of York, 132, 133, 228, 

230, 231. 
Ethelred, 107, 110. 
Ethelwold, 108, 109, 110. 
Evelyn, John, 55, 56, 133, 135. 
Exton, Sir Pierce of, 289. 

Fairfax, Sir Thomas, 146, 246, 
247. 



Index 



347 



Fastolf, Sir John, 31. 
Fauconberg, Thomas the Bastard 

of, 283. 
Field of the Cloth of Gold, 16. 
Fitzhardinge family, the, 205, 217. 
Fitzhardinge, Robert, 209 
Fitz-Ralph, Robert, 282. 
Fitzurse, Reginald, 73. 
Flambard, Rarmulf, 332, 333. 
Flodden Field, 337. 
Fotheringay Castle, 304, 314, 

316. 
Fox, Bishop, 336. 
Fox, George, 268, 269. 
FramUngham Castle, 163-177 
France, Anatole, 20S. 
Francis I, 16, 21, 22. 
Froissart, 178, 187, 290, 327. 

Gaunt, John of, 261, 262, 263, 264, 

265. 
Gaveston, Piers, 9, 58, 179, 180, 

285, 323. 
George I, 137, 138, 234. 
George IV, 125, 217. 
Gloucester, Duke of, 65. 
Gloucester, Earl of, 48. 
Godwin, Earl, 207, 208. 
Grammont, Count, " Memoirs " 

of, 150. 
Gray, Thomas, 212. 
Grey, Lady Jane, 145, 164, 168, 

169, 170, 171, 174. 
Grey, Lord Richard, 282. 
Gundrada, 83, 84. 
Gundulf, Bishop, 47. 

Hallam, Henry, 143. 
Hall, Edward, 131, 132. 
Hammond, Colonel Robert, 97, 

98, 99, 100, 101, 102. 
Hammond, Dr. Henry, 97, 102. 
Hampton Court, 93, 96, 130. 
Hardyng, 319. 
Harold, 3, 4. 
Hastings, Battle of, 4, 5, 43, 83, 

151. 
Hastings, Lord, 274, 275. 
Hawte, Sir Richard, 292. 
Hedingham Castle, 148-159. 
Helena, 142. 
Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, 

26. 
Henrietta Maria, 25, 26. 
Henry I, 48, 111, 122, 209, 320. 



Henry II, 5, 7, 68, 69, 71, 72, 76, 

122, 209, 319. 
Henry III, 6, 51, 52, 85, 86, 87, 

88, 89, 90, 145, 152, 195, 209, 

Henry IV, 62, 64, 265, 329. 

Henry V, 64, 65, 195, 196. 

Hemy VI, 65, 195, 219, 220. 

Henrv VII, 10, 11, 124, 132, 152 
153, 157, 158, 228, 230, 283, 
329. 

Henry VIII, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 
18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 33, 34, 35, 
37, 38, 39, 40, 53, 57, 77, 84, 
124, 1^7, 1-29, 131, 164, 177 
215, 231. 

Henry IV of France, 25. 

Herbert, Edward, 245. 

Herbert, Lord, 31, 36. 

Hever Castle, 28-40. 

Hoghton, Sir Richard, 257, 258. 

Hoghton Tower, 251-260. 

Holbein, Hans, 22, 23. 

Holinshed, Raphael, 122. 

Hotspur, 328. 

Howard, John, 269. 

Howard, Thomas, 177. 

" Hudibras," 234. 

Hume, Da^^d, 85, 158, 272. 

Hurst Castle, 104. 

Isabella of Angouleme, 113. 

Isabella of France, 58, 59, 60, 61, 
178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 
184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 180, 
190, 191, 209, 210, 211, 212. 

Isabella of ^'alois, 62. 

James I of Scotland, 126. 
James I, 100, 20G, 217, 251, 252, 

253, 254, 255, 256, 267, 258, 

259, 2G0. 
James II, 54, 136. 
James IV, 329, 336, 337. 
Jemingham, Sir Henry, 173. 
Joan of Navarre, 64, 65, 178. 
John, 8, 48, 49, 50, 51, 76, 111, 

112, 113, 127, 143, 144, 145, 

209, 266, 333. 

Kenilworth Castle, 192-204. 
Kenninghall, 166, 167. 
Keroualle, Louise de, 26, 27. 
" Kingis Quair, The," 126. 
Knollvs, Sir Francis, 301, 302, 
303', 304, 305, 306, 307.' 



348 



Index 



Lancaster Castle, 261-270. 
Lancaster, Thomas, Earl of, 285, 

286, 287, 323. 
Laneham, Robert, 194, 197, 202. 
Laud, Archbishop, 260. 
Lawrence, Captain, 116, 117. 
Leeds Castle, 55-67. 
Leicester, Earl of, 192, 193, 197, 

216. 
Leland, John, 237, 305, 337. 
Lewes Castle, 80-92. 
Lingard, John, 272. 
Linley, Sir Henry, 283. 
Lisle, Sir George, 147. 
Louis XII, 11, 12, 13. 
Louis XIV, 26. 
Louis, Dauphin of France, 8, 9, 

144, 145. 
Lowther, Sir Richard, 299, 300. 
Lucas, Sir Charles, 146, 147. 
Ludlow Castle, 218-235. 
Lytton, Bulwer, 277. 

Macaulay, Lord, 148, 150. 
Magna Charta, 8, 49, 52, 86, 127, 

143, 144. 
Mapes, Walter, 207, 208. 
March, Edward Earl of, see Ed- 
i ward IV. 

Margaret, Princess, 329. 
Marguerite, Queen, 322. ' 
" Marmion," 331, 338, 339. 
Marmion, William, 337, 338. 
Mary, Queen, 145, 146, 163, 165, 

167, 168, 169, 171, 172, 173, 

174, 231, 232. 
Mary Queen of Scots, see Stuart, 

Mary. 
Matilda, 48. 

Matilda of Boulogna, 156. 
Mickle, William J., 192. 
Middleham Castle, 271-283. 
Middleham, Collegiate Church, 

278, 279, 283. 
Milner, Thomas, 294, 295, 296. 
Milton, John, 233. 
Monmouth, Duke of, 136. 
Montfort, Simon de, 52, 53, 86, 

87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 152, 285. 
Montgomery, Roger de, 266. 
Monthaut, Robert de, 190, 91. 
Moray, Earl of, 305. 
Moreville, Hugh de, 73. 
Morgan, Colonel, 246. 
Morris, Colonel John, 297, 298. 



Mortimer, Roger, 182, 183, 185, 
186, 187, 209, 211, 212. 

Mortimer, Roger, of Wigmore, 
195. 

Morton, Thomas, 259. 

Mowbray, Robert de, 320. 

Moyle, Sir Thomas, 281, 282. 

Murray, Earl of, 326. 

Nevil, Lord John, 325. ' 
Neville, Richard, 291. 
Neville, Robert de, 282. 
Newcastle-on-Tyne Castle, 317- 

329. 
Norfolk, Duke of, 176, 177. 
Norham Castle, 330-339. 
Northimaberland, Duke of, see 

Dudley, John. 
Nottingham Castle, 186, 304. 

Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, 43, 44, 

45, 46, 47, 48, 56, 100, 190. 
Oldcastle, Sir John, 63, 64. 
Ordgar, Earl of Cornwall, 108. 
Otway, Thomas, 123, 125. 
Oxford, Earls of, 149, 151. 

Paston Letters, The, 31, 153, 157. 

176. 
Pencestre, Sir Stephen de, 8, 9. 
Pepys, Samuel, 41, 55, 134, 135. 
Percy, Thomas, 300. 
Pevensey Castle, 45, 209. 
Pharos at Dover, 3. 
Philip le Bel, 178, 179. 
Philippa of Hainault, 326, 327. 
Plantagenet, Richard, 281, 282. 
Pontefract Castle, 284-298. 
Prasutagus, 141. 
Pudsey, Hugh de, 332. 

Quincy, Saer de, 144, 145. 

Radcliffe, Ann, 46. 
Raglan Castle, 236-248. 
Richard Coeur de JJkki, 7. 
Richard II, 61, 62, 124, 152, 262, 

264, 284, 287, 288, 289, 290, 

291, 328. 
Richard III, 220, 227, 271, 272, 

273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 

279, 280, 281, 283, 284, 292, 

293. 
Richmond, Duke of, 127, 128. 
Rivers, Earl, 292. 



Index 



349 



Rizzio, David, 251. 

Robert of Normandy, 44, 45, 

318, 320. 
Robsart, Amy, 193. 
Rochester Castle, 41-54. 
Roses, Wars of the, 10, 152, 153, 

176, 220, 223, 267. 
Ruskin, John, 29, 238. 
Rutland, Earl of, 220, 227. 

St. George's Chapel, 124, 125, 

130, 133, 134, 237. 
Saltwood Castle, 68-79. 
Savoy palace, 264. 
Sawston Hall, 166. 
Scott, Sir Walter, 192, 193, 330, 

331, 338. 
Scrope, Lord, 299, 301, 302. 
Scrope, Richard le, 291. 
Seymour, Jane, 22. 
Sidney, Sir Henry, 233. 
Sidney, Sir Philip, 233. 
Shakespeare, William, 33, 62, 

140, 261, 262, 264, 271, 272, 

282, 284, 288, 289. 
Sheffield Castle, 314, 315. 
Shore, Jane, 274. 
Shrewsbury, Countess of, 309, 

310. 
Shrewsbury, Earl of, 308, 309, 

310, 313, 314. 
Somerset, the Protector, 129, 130. 
Somerset, Henry, 236, 237, 240, 

241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 

247. 
Somerset, Sir Thomas, 242. 
Stanley, Dean, 72. 
Stephen, 48, 156, 320. 
Stow, John, 196. 
Strickland, Agnes, 182, 188. 
Stuart, Mary, 251, 299, 300, 301, 

302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 

308, 309, 310, 311, 312, 313, 

314, 315, 316. 
Suffolk, Duke of, 23, 170. 
Surrey, Earl of, 127, 128. 
Swift, Rev. Thomas, 241, 242. 
Swynford, Catherine, 263. 

Tennyson, Lord, 72, 151. 
Timbi, John, 281. 



Titchfield House, 97, 99. 
Thierry, Augustin, 5. 
Throckmorton, Sir Nicholas, 165, 

166. 
Tour d'Odre, 2, 3. 
Tracy, WiUiam de, 73. 
Tudor, Mary, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 

20, 21, 32, 33. 
Tutbury Castle, 307-313. 

"Udolpho, The Mysteries of," 
46. 

Vaughan, Sir Thomas, 292. 
Veres, the de, 148, 149, 150, 151, 

159. 
Vere, Aubrey de, 151, 152, 156. 
Vere, Edward de, 152, 153, 154, 

155. 
Vere, John de, 152, 153, 157, 158. 
Victoria, Queen, 105, 125, 270. 

Walpole, Horace, 57, 158, 159, 

206, 207. 
Vv'arbcck, Perkin, 33G. 
Warren, John, Earl of, 87. 
Warren, WilUam de, 83, 85. 
Warwick the King-maker 276, 

277. 
Washington, George, 92. 
Wathng Street, 41, 42. 
Weldon, Sir Anthony, 252. 
Westminster Abbey, 120. 
Whalley, Colonel, 93, 94, 95, 96. 
White, Nicholas, 311, 312. 
WilUam the Conqueror, 3, 4, 5, 

6, 43, 44, 47, 81, 83. 100, 119, 

120, 122, 176, 320. 
William Rufus, 44, 45, 46, 318, 

319, 320, 332. 
William of Orange, 137. 
Windsor Castle, 119-138. 
Wolsey, Cardinal, 17, 19, 33, 34, 

134. 
Worcester, Marquis of, see Som- 
erset, Henry. 
Wyatt, George, 36. 
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 36. 
Wykeham, William of, 123. 

York, Archbishop of, 255. 
York, Duke of, 219, 220, 221, 222. 



J477 
1272 



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